Invincible
by ebonezer
Summary: Meet Chris. Chris is a bounty hunter. The SWAT Kat's have a large bounties on they're heads. You do the math. I UPDATED FINALY!
1. the begening, it's a good place to start

Authors Note: I haven't even thought about the SWAT Kats in years, and it's been even longer sense I've seen an episode. Naturally, I've forgotten a lot about their characterizations. Forgive me. Oh yeah, I don't own them or anything else even vaguely recognizable.  
  
Jake crawled sleepily out of the hanger and flopped down onto the couch next to his best bud, Chance.  
  
"Hey buddy," Chance said slapping his smaller friend on the shoulder, "The Turbokat must be purring by now. You've been down there for," he checked his watch, or at least tried to before he realized he wasn't wearing it, "well, a long time. Don't you ever take a break?"  
  
Jake snorted, "Ha! Our beloved plane would go to crap if I didn't spend so much time down there. And then where would the fine kats of Megakat city be? Depending on the Enforcers? That'd be interesting."  
  
Chance laughed loudly, "You know you don't have to do it yourself, I'd help you."  
  
"I know, but aside from moral support I don't know what all you could do. It's a lot of math and computer work. Not exactly your expertise."  
  
Chance cringed, "Oh man, am I glad your looking out for my best interests. It leaves me more time to watch high art such as this," he gestured at Scardy Kat running across the TV screen, "thanks bud."  
  
Jake laughed sleepily, "Don't mention it. What've we got to eat around here?" He pulled himself off the couch and wandered into the kitchen where he found a can of milk and some cold pizza. He glanced at the clock hanging next to a large crack in the wall, 'Jesus,' he thought to himself, '10 pm, I was down there a long time.' He was just going to go back into the living room to watch TV when he heard shouting coming from outside. Great, he thought, just what I need. He put down the food and popped his head in the living room, "Hey Chance, there's something going on outside, I'm going to go check it out."  
  
"Yeah, yeah," Chance said, getting up, "wait up, I'll come." The two of them trotted down the hall and tentatively opened the door.  
  
There they met quite the site, a black she kat was sitting on a black horse, shouting at a tow truck driver who's old truck was pulling an even older truck with an ancient goose neck horse trailer attached to the back of it. The driver was trying to navigate the train around a 90-degree corner and through the narrow gate with high walls on each side to get into the scarp yard.  
  
"Hey hey hey!" the she-kat shouted at the driver, "If that rig gets one more dent on it then it already has I will have your tail!! NO! Now back up!! Watch the bumper!" There was a pause when it looked like the driver would get it all trough safely. "STOP! Watch my rear-view mirror!" she trotted over to the rig and slammed the mirror shut. She backed away from the rig, "Now go! Come on! Move it! NO! Jesus! Get out of the truck! Come on, out!"  
  
She jumped off of the horse and, noticing Jake and Chance for the first time, strode over to them.  
  
She held out her hand and grinned at them, obviously tryig to swallow her anger and act civil. "Hey, my names Chris . My rig broke down a couple of miles out of town, and this genius," she pointed at the tow truck driver who was still trying to get the caravan through the gate, "said that you guys are the best. You better be after all this work I'm going through to get in here. HEY!" she yelled at the driver, "Don't move!! I'll do it!!!" she turned back to the mechanics, "so you guys can fix my rig right? You don't have to tonight obviously, I can sleep in the gooseneck," she referred to the horse trailer, "if you guys don't mind me on your property overnight," she added as an afterthought.  
  
Chance nodded, "Sleeping here is no problem, and I think we can fix your rig."  
  
"Tomorrow," Jake added, "It's been a long day."  
  
"I know how you feel," she paused, "hey can one of you guys please hold onto my horse while I go drive this stuff in? Please?" she held the reins out to them. Jake tentatively stepped forward, "Uh, does he bite?" he asked taking the reins.  
  
"Not if you don't stick you fingers in his mouth. I'll be right back. You guys are my hero's." With this she turned on her heel and strode off towards the tow truck shouting, "Get out of the truck!"  
  
Jake turned to he horse, "Hi," he said moving his hand up to pet the horse. The horse saw this and envisioned a scaly snake trying to bite his nose off and jumped back, snorting and flaring his nostrils.  
  
"Here Chance, maybe you should hold the horse."  
  
Chance backed away, chuckling, "No really buddy, I think your much more suitable for the job."  
  
Jake stood stiffly holding the horse as far away as possible. The horse decided he didn't much like Jake either and stood as far away from the skinny kat as the reins would allow, and hoped that Chris would come back and give him a sugar cube. Or maybe that larger, orange kat would. Forgetting why he was avoiding the skinny kat, the horse brushed past him and over to this big orange tom. The horse stuck his nose in the big kats face and snorted, then worked his was down his arm, sniffing and snorting and working his lips and he tongue so he got slimy green slobber all over Chance.  
  
Chance laughed, "Hey I think he likes me."  
  
Jake laughed, "Better you than me buddy."  
  
The horse started licking the palm of Chances hand, then suddenly took a small bite of one of his fingers.  
  
"Hey! Ow!!" Chance shouted yanking his hand away and spooking the horse who jumped back with his ears pressed against his head.  
  
The horse decided he didn't like either one of the Kats and hoped that Chris would come back and save him from these imbeciles soon. Then the horse decided he was hungry and started looking around for some hay, a scrap of grass, anything. Finding none in the general vicinity he started hunting around, dragging Jake behind him.  
  
"Hey, stop horse! Stop! Cease! Desist! End all movement! Halt!" Jake yelled franticly leaning back against the reins. This didn't stop the horse from dragging Jake along, who had planted his feet and was "dirt skiing" along behind.  
  
"A little help would be appreciated!" he shouted to Chance who was laughing at him.  
  
"Please!" Jake shouted desperately, and Chance decided that it was time to lend his smaller friend a hand. He ran up behind Jake and wrapped his arms around his waist, he took up the same position, "dirt skiing" along behind the horse who still found no reason to stop and in fact started going faster.  
  
Chris looked up from arguing over the bill with the driver to see this sight. She burst out laughing, "Oh my god I have to film this!" she turned and jogged to her truck, grabbed her video camera, and started shooting.  
  
"Smile boys!" she shouted as the horse drug them right by her.  
  
"Hey! No fair making fun of those in unfortunate positions!" Chance shouted when he saw her. This only made her laugh harder. She clicked at the horse, "Faster!" she shouted. The horse broke into a canter.  
  
"Uh oh," Jake yelled to Chance.  
  
"Uh-oh!" Chance shouted, "Uh-oh is NOT something I want to hear. What's the problem?"  
  
"Rock!" Jake shouted, it was only a foot away, he tried jumping over it but Chance held him down, not seeing the rock. Chance hit his foot on it, and fell down head over heels, taking Jake with him. The reins were ripped out of Jakes hands as he went face first into the dirt. The two mechanics landed in a heap with Chance on top.  
  
Chris ran over to them still wielding her camera. "Are you guys ok?" she asked, trying not to laugh. "You have to tell me how bad you're hurt so I can decide if I'm going to send this tape to Megakats Funniest Videos, or Real T.V.. I hope your not hurt too bad because Megakats Funniest Videos gives cash prizes and that defiantly wins first place!" Again she started laughing uncontrollably.  
  
"I'm glad I have your sympathy," Chance said grumpily.  
  
"Can't.Breathe." Jake gasped, "Get.off."  
  
Chris offered her hand to Chance, still laughing a little she said, "Come on, you better give your friend some air."  
  
Chance reluctantly took her hand and she easily yanked him up off of Jake, who inhaled sharply. "Thanks," he gasped. She offered him her hand, "Want up?"  
  
"No thanks, I think I'll lie here and contemplate the meaning of life," he said closing his eyes and trying to catch his breath. Chris laughed some more.  
  
The horse wondered why nobody was paying attention to him and trotted over to the trio. He noticed the skinny kat on the ground and wondered if he was dead, he stuck his nose in Jake's face and inhaled sharply, smelling him. Jake's eyes shoot open, "Ok, I'm ready to get up now." Chris chuckled and again offered him a hand, which Jake took.  
  
"I'm sorry you guys," she figured she should apologize, "I forget sometimes that not everybody is a horse person. And my horse usually had better manners." She took up the reins, "Key word being usually I guess. Sorry," she said again.  
  
Jake could tell that Chance was about to snap something mean at her so he put a hand on his friends shoulder stopping him, "We forgive you as long as you share the prize money," he said light-heartedly, he really didn't feel like dealing with Chances temper right now.  
  
She laughed, "Thank god, after I saw you wipe out I was a little afraid you might sue me. That's they way some kats are these days," she mimicked a sue happy kat, "Oh my god! I spilt hot coffee on me! I have to sue KatDonnalds!" She spoke normally again, "It's ridicules."  
  
Still sensing apprehension in Chance, Jake spoke before he could mouth off at Chris, "I know what you mean, it's pretty dumb."  
  
They started walking back over to the tow truck driver, who was just unhitching Chris' truck off of his. Chris paid him, and he drove off, muttering something about not getting a tip.  
  
"Listen," Chance finally spoke up, Jake inwardly cringed, here it comes, "You don't really want to sleep in your trailer do you? It might be more comfortable if you took the couch."  
  
Jake looked at Chance in surprise but didn't say anything.  
  
Chris shook her head, "Nah, I'm perfectly happy out here, I've got an air mattresses, and I'll be out of your fur, really, I think I'd rather sleep out here."  
  
"No, I don't think that's such a good idea," Chance persisted, "It gets cold, and the weather report said rain."  
  
"Really I can handle it."  
  
"Alright then at lease come inside for now ok?"  
  
"Thanks but I have to take care of my horse. Then I'll go to bed."  
  
"Let us help," Chance offered.  
  
"What?!" Jake said in surprise, "Look bud, I don't know about you but I'm tired," as an afterthought he added, "No offence or anything Chris."  
  
She shook her head, "None taken."  
  
"Fine then let me help," Chance continued.  
  
Chris shook her head, "Yeah ok, whatever, but there's not that much you can do. Here, start by holding him," she offered the horses reins to him with a big grin spread across her face.  
  
Chance stepped back, "What can I do besides that?"  
  
Chris laughed, "In the front tack room in the trailer there's some pipe panels, could you set them up and make a little coral for my horse? Make the side of the trailer one of the walls, ok? Can you handle that?"  
  
"Yeah I think I can do that," he said pulling open the door, and yanking the first panel out.  
  
"I'm going to go inside," Jake said, thinking about his dinner. "See ya," and he strode off towards the house.  
  
"So, what's your horses name?" Chance asked, making conversation.  
  
"Horse," she said as she pulled the saddle off his back.  
  
"Horse?"  
  
"Yep."  
  
"Just horse?"  
  
"Uh-huh. Well actually it's Dar, but i call him horse."  
  
"Dar? Does that mean something?"  
  
"Um.." she paused then laughed a little, "Dumb Ass Retard."  
  
Chance paused putting the coral together and gave her a look.  
  
"I told my nephiew he could name the horse, and he named him Dar because it was some wired inside joke he had with somebody. I never really liked the name. So i call him Horse."  
  
"Right..." Chance said, turning back to the corral.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"...so she's sleeping in her trailer?" Jake asked once Chance came back in. Their bedrooms were adjacent and if they talked loud enough they could have a conversation through the thin wall. As they talked Jake flipped through the latest issue of Scientific Megakateain.  
  
"Yeah, she's got an air matriss in the the gooseneck. I just hope we don't get a call tonite, she say's she's a sound sleeper but i think a jet blasting over her head would wake her up."  
  
"Oh, so that's why you wanted her to sleep in the house so bad." They had soundproofed the house and garage a couple of years ago, "good thinking," he added.  
  
"She said she'd be out of our hair and into a hotel by tomorow."  
  
"You really talked it up with her didn't you," Jake teased.  
  
"Hey you know me, always the ladys man," Chance could hear Jake laughing through the wall.  
  
"Did you find out what's she's doing in Megakat city?"  
  
"She's a bounty hunter, passing through looking for somebody or another."  
  
"A bounty hunter? Wow, that's pretty intense. She dragges that horse around with her?"  
  
"Yeah, apparently it's how she get's around when she's doing her thing. Apparently Horse is trained to the teeth. She's got a motorcycle too, a really nice one."  
  
"Wait a second, Horse? Is that his name? That thing is trained?"  
  
"The name is kind of a long story. And yeah, that thing is apparently very well trained."  
  
"Yeah well tell that to the horse. How's your foot?"  
  
Chance rubbed his foot, wincing slightly, "Fine. Don't worry about it."  
  
"Do you think the Turbokat needs a camera?"  
  
"What? What does that have to do with anything?"  
  
"Nothing really, but do you think the Turbokat needs a camera? There's a cool one in my magazene"  
  
"What kind of camera?"  
  
"Uh," Jake squinted at the tiny print under the picture in the Scientific Megakateain, "a digital Micon 3050rs Transhot Ultra with zoom lens, glare reductiors, and 1000 hours of battery life."  
  
"How much does it cost?"  
  
"A lot.. They haven't realeased it in Megakat yet. It's only avalable in gapan."  
  
"Remind me why we need this?"  
  
"I dunno, but it seems like whenever I install something it becomes incredibly useful and we wonder how we ever got along with out it. I can throw one together at a quarter of the cost too."  
  
"Whatever, you could instal a washing maciene in that thing and i probably wouldn't notice so we might as well have a camera," Chance yawned, "Can we talk about this in the moring? I need to get some sleep."  
  
"Yeah, i'm falling asleep with my eyes open."  
  
"And your brain working on areodynamics on missles i'm sure," Chance mumbled as he dozed off. 


	2. the next part

Authors note - I am going to dedicate this chapter to Nako-Chan because she is so cool! (she even read my Indiana Jones fic!) She is my favorite person in the whole world right now because she inflated my (already large) ego so much.  
  
Chris woke up the next morning around nine, and the two mechanics where already up and about digging through the scrap yard looking for some part or another. She could hear them moving junk around, throwing things and otherwise making a lot of noise. One of them was whistling.  
  
She crawled out of "bed" and quickly dressed in jeans and an old T-shirt, then went outside and threw some hay to Horse. Jake saw her and waved, shouting, "Hey, your awake!"  
  
"And damned ashamed that I'm up before noon!" she yelled back, " I blame you!"  
  
"Me? What'd I do?" Jake was walking towards her now.  
  
"I dunno but it's probably your fault."  
  
Chance appeared from behind a pile of scrap, "What'd Jake do this time?"  
  
"Nothing!" Jake insisted.  
  
"Sure, that's what he wants us to think." Chris joked.  
  
The three of them were now close enough to each other to talk without shouting.  
  
Seeing her clearly for the first time the mechanics saw that Chris was a tall, black kat with long, straight hair. Her eyes where green and she had a series of three silver loops pierced up her left ear. Her right ear was split from the tip to about halfway down the middle of it. Chance noticed her tail wasn't puffy like most she-kat's were, but slimmer like a he-kats.  
  
"Hey your limping," Chris said to Chance, concerned, "That's from when you hit the rock last night huh. I'm really sorry about that."  
  
"Don't worry about it," Chance said, blowing it off, "how about we take a look at your rig?"  
  
"Good plan," Chris agreed, "This poor old truck is on it's last legs I think."  
  
"Maybe," Jake said, "but then again, maybe not. Let's take a look."  
  
The three of them unhitched the trailer from the back of the truck, and Chris jumped into the drivers seat. She turned the key and the truck made an awful grinding and groaning sound. Chance cringed, "that doesn't sound good."  
  
"Try it again," Jake suggested.  
  
Chris tried again, this time pushing the clutch in, and pressing on the gas, then she tried pumping on the gas pedal, then pulling the choke, then pumping the gas while pulling the choke before finally giving up.  
  
"Can I try?" asked Chance.  
  
"Go for it," Chris said moving over on the seat.  
  
Chance tried every trick he knew to no avail.  
  
"Pop the hood will ya?" Jake asked, and when it was up he climbed up and used a wrench to adjust some stuff. "Now try!"  
  
Again, there was a lot of noise but the engine never started. Together the three of them pushed the truck into the garage.  
  
Chris talked to them as they worked on the big diesel truck.  
  
"So have you guy's always been mechanics?"  
  
There was an awkward silence before Chance answered, "We're actually ex- Enforcers."  
  
Jake spoke up, "We had a little mishap and kinda blew up Enforcers headquarters. So we got sent here to work until we paid off the damages."  
  
"That seems harsh."  
  
"Yeah, well you haven't met Feral," Chance said as a kind of explanation.  
  
"He's a poster boy for by-the-book, tight-asses," Jake added.  
  
"That sucks."  
  
"Tell me about it," Chance said, then changed the subject, "What brings you to Megakat City?"  
  
"Work."  
  
"Oh right, the bounty hunter thing."  
  
"Exactly, you know for being the capital city of Megakat, not to mention the largest city in the entire country, the Enforcers around here leave a lot to be desired. I pulled some stuff off of the Enforcer website and you've got a list of criminals a mile long," as she spoke she climbed into the truck and pulled a thick stack of papers off the passenger seat, jumped out of the truck, and carried the papers over to the work bench where she sat down and started flipping threw them, "And most of them have huge bounty's on their heads. I'm obviously new to the city so I've never heard of most of these guys, but most of them are worth looking into. Listen," she started reading one of the papers, "The Metalikats and Hard Drive, are worth $10,000 each, Dr. Viper and the Pastmaster are worth $15, 000, Dark Kat's got $17,000 on his head and-holy shit!" she interrupted herself, "$30,000 dollars for the SWAT Kat's!"  
  
The wrench Chance was holding fell from his hands and clattered across the floor, and Jake hit his head on the underside of the hood. They were only half listening before, all that other stuff was old news, but this was new.  
  
"Who are they, and what did they do to get that kind money on their heads?" Chris wondered.  
  
Jake figured they had bounties on their heads but this was insane.  
  
"Their bio says, 'Two male kat's who call themselves T-Bone and Razor, and fly a high tech jet wrecking chaos and havoc wherever they go. They are dangerous vigilantes. They have caused millions of dollars worth of damage and are a direct threat to the mayor."  
  
Anger boiled up within Chance, was Feral that hell bent against catching them that he would make up lies?!  
  
".They are considered armed and dangerous. T-bone is 5'10' blah, blah, blah. The rest is descriptions."  
  
Jake glanced at Chance, he was obviously about to explode with rage. Jake put his hand on his shoulder and whispered in his ear, "Don't react, we can't let her see us react. This is no big deal."  
  
Chance glared at him.  
  
"Chance," Jake warned, "don't react."  
  
Chance grimaced then nodded, he turned his back and went to find his wrench.  
  
Chris turned to Jake, "Do you know anything about these guys?"  
  
Jake faltered slightly, but quickly regained his composure, "uh, not much, just what I've seen on the news."  
  
"What have you seen? Do these guys just fly around in they're jet and randomly blow buildings up or what?"  
  
"Um, I'm not exactly sure really. I don't pay much attention," Jake shrugged and turned back to the truck. He willed her not to ask any more questions.  
  
Chance found his wrench and walked back to the truck. He tossed the wrench up into the air, it spun a few times before he caught it, "You know, I don't think the SWAT Kat's are all bad."  
  
Jake's hand slipped off the wench he was using to loosen a bolt and whacked into part of the engine. He swore and glared at Chance. Chance threw the wrench up in the air again, and caught it, deliberately avoiding Jake's gaze, "I mean, they haven't done anything really bad."  
  
"Seems to me like blowing up building's is pretty bad."  
  
"I've noticed that they only show up when villains are around," he threw the wrench up, and caught it, "haven't you, Jake?" he said turning to look at Jake for the first time.  
  
Jake shot Chance a look but remained silent. All that was going through his mind was 'Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.'  
  
Chris spoke up, "So they're using the other villains as a cover. While the Enforcers are busy with the other bad guys, that's when the SWAT Kat's attack. It's actually pretty smart of them if you think about it."  
  
Chance tossed the wrench up one last time, but missed the catch and it went clattering across the hard cement floor, "Maybe you right," he said and tuned back to his work. Chris turned back to the criminal file and didn't notice Jake stomping on Chance's tail.  
  
A few minutes later she turned from her file and said, "Hey would you guys mind if I left Horse here with you and went into Megakat City? I'd like to talk to some Enforcers, especially this Feral guy. And I'll check into a hotel too so you don't have deal with me anymore."  
  
The mechanics nodded, "Yeah, go ahead," Jake said.  
  
"Just as long as we don't have to do anything that required going within twenty feet of Horse," Chance added, his foot still hurt.  
  
Chris laughed, "Be nice to him ok? He should be fine. He's pretty much used to being in strange places."  
  
She stuffed the pile of papers into a backpack she found in her truck and walked out of the garage, waving goodbye. When Jake heard her motorcycle start, and then the rumbling sound fade away as she left he turned to Chance, "What the hell was that?!" he couldn't help shouting.  
  
"What am I just supposed to stand there and take it when she offends us like that?"  
  
"She's not offending us she's offending the SWAT Kat's! We are not the SWAT Kat's!" he lowered his voice, "right now we are Jake and Chance, the lowly mechanics. We are not the SWAT Kat's until we are in those flight suits and right now, I don't see any flight suits."  
  
"So we just sit her and let her believe those lies?!"  
  
"Yes, that's exactly what we do! We can't go defending the SWAT Kat's at every turn, if we do some day, some kat will make a connection! That is not something we want to happen."  
  
"There are a million ways somebody could make a connection!"  
  
"Exactly, and we want to make as few ways a possible. There are millions of kat's in Megakat City that will defend us to the end because they know that we're not bad. If there weren't, we would have kat's after the bounty on our tails constantly. So let the kat's who believe in us, defend us," with that Jake turned back the rig and went back to work.  
  
After taking a minute or to let his anger fade Chance did the same. "So," he asked acting like they're fight had never happened, "what do you think is wrong with this thing?" 


	3. the next next part

"Yes!" Chance shouted triumphantly as the old rig's engine roared to life, "finally where getting somewhere with this heap of junk!"  
  
Of course the alarm had to choose that very moment to interrupt.  
  
"Aww crud!" Chance shouted thumping the dashboard, "we'll never get this thing started again!"  
  
"Sorry buddy," Jake said reaching for the phone, "duty calls. Yes Miss Briggs?" he said into the phone.  
  
"Hey guys, the Pastmaster is up to something, get down here! We need you!"  
  
"Gotcha Miss Briggs, we're on it!"  
  
"Come on, let's go! And turn off the truck!"  
  
"Couldn't we leave it on? We'll never get it started again!"  
  
Jake jogged over to the truck, reached over, and turned off the key. The truck's engine grinded to a halt, "No. Come on lets go!"  
  
The two of them bolted down into the hanger and suited up with well practiced ease.  
  
Once in the Turbokat and streaking across the sky towards a column of smoke rising from the city, Razor explained the situation, "Our favorite little purple goblin is up to something again."  
  
"Aww crud. Let's try not to get zapped back into pre-history this time."  
  
"Roger that buddy."  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
"Jackass," Chris mumbled as she strode out of Ferals office. Their meeting had been less than useful to her. The whole thing started on a bad note when Feral had demeaned that she give up her gun to the Enforcers (she had it strapped around her waist in it's holster) stating, "it is against Megakat city code to carry a concealed weapon."  
  
She refused to do so, saying, "Firstly, it's not concealed, secondly, I've got a permit," and she thossed the permits onto his desk. He looked briefly over them before thrusting them back to her mumbling lamely, "Well, I suppose we can make an exception."  
  
He had scoffed when she had said she was a bounty hunter, and laughed at her when she said she was looking for information on the SWAT Kat's. "Listen," he had said trying to sound kind and grandfatherly, "why don't you play 'bounty hunter' with some less dangerous criminals and leave the SWAT Kat's to the Enforcers?"  
  
"With all due respect sir," she spat out the word sir, "bite me." She spun on her heal and strode out of his office.  
  
Which left her where she was now, driving her motorcycle aimlessly around downtown Megakat City trying to swallow her anger and find a hotel.  
  
Then she noticed the column of smoke rising from the skyline just north of her. "This looks interesting," she said to herself and sped off towards the now visible flames. She met no traffic going north, all other vehicles were southbound trying to get away from whatever was going on to the north. Nobody stopped her from riding directly into the action.  
  
The first thing Chris noticed after she skidded to a halt and looked around was a large black jet landed in the middle of the street. A blue and red motorcycle was parked near by. Standing in front of the jet with their backs to her were who Chris presumed to be the SWAT Kats. They were standing with their feet spread wide and their tails thrashing madly about shouting threats and firing at something she couldn't see.  
  
She pulled her gun and crept up behind them, unnoticed. She was close now, within ten feet or so. Now five feet. Suddenly, a loud smashing sound was heard coming from beneath her feet, she had stepped on a large piece of broken glass. Immediacy the smaller kat, who she presumed was Razor, spun around and aimed his weapon at her. She aimed her weapon at the larger kat, T-bone.  
  
Razors eyes widened in surprise at seeing Chris, but his mask hid it, or at least made it impossible for her to read the expression clearly. "Drop it," she said coldly, "or else I shoot him," she gestured towards T-bone. Who at this point turned around to see what was going on, only to come face to face with the barrel of Chris' gun.  
  
"Don't do this. You're making a mistake," Razor pleaded.  
  
"Am I?" she asked, "Doesn't seem to me like stopping Megakat City's biggest super villain is a mistake. Drop your weapon. You too," she said to T- bone, "Come on, hurry up, I haven't got all day."  
  
Slowly Razor pulled off his glovatrix and dropped it on the ground. He nodded to T-bone who did the same.  
  
T-bone growled, "We're not villains. We're the closest thing this city's got to hero."  
  
"We protect kat's," Razor added.  
  
"You don't get bounties as big as the ones you've got on your heads by protecting kat's. I think you'd get something more like an Enforcers badge for protecting kat's."  
  
"Do you see any Enforcers around her!" T-bone yelled, "look!" he gestured to the other end of the street where they had been shooting, "Did you see any Enforcers around when that was happening!?"  
  
Chris looked in the direction T-bone was gesturing. "No wonder you guy's have a bounty that large on your heads," she wrinkled her nose, "you disgust me."  
  
The two SWAT Kat's looked to the end of the street where the Pastmaster had stood with his watch only moments ago. Instead of the ugly, skeletal goblin standing there, an old kat was lying on the pavement, blood running from an open wound in his chest. A small kitten was holding onto his collar crying and screaming, "Grandpa! Grandpa! Wake up Grandpa! Wake up!"  
  
Chris' voice was hard when she next spoke, "So this is what you do, murder helpless kat's and then what? Rob them? Or do you just do it for your own sick enjoyment?"  
  
As she spoke a cluster of Enforcer squad cars rounded a corner and came blaring into sight. They screeched to a halt a few feet from where Chris and the SWAT Kat's were standing.  
  
"Step aside!" Feral shouted as he steped out of his squad car, "The Enforcers will handle this!"  
  
Despite his situation, T-bone rolled his eyes, that line was getting old.  
  
Feral noticed the two "dangerous vigilantes" for the first time, "SWAT Kats!" he shouted dramatically, and gestured to two Enforcers sanding nearby, "cuff them!"  
  
The two Enforcers mover forward.  
  
"Don't touch them!" Chris shouted at the now confused Enforcers, who looked to Feral for support.  
  
"Stand down, these criminals belong to us!"  
  
"Yeah right! I captured them, but if you cuff them I don't get my bounty."  
  
"You are standing in the way of the Enforcers and preventing my men from doing their job! That alone is grounds for arrest! Release these kat's to us and I will let you go! Otherwise we will be forced to take action against you!"  
  
"Not on your life," Chris spat, with one swift movement she tucked her toe under one of the glovatrixes and kicked it into T-bones arms, she did the same with Razor's, then turned and ran for cover behind the jet.  
  
The two enforcers who had moved in to hand-cuff T-bone and Razor dove in to grab the two before they could get a hold of their weapons. Razor nimbly dodged the oncoming Enforcer, spun and kicked is legs out from underneath him. The second enforcer had landed on T-bones back and had his arms around T-bones neck. Razor punched him in the nose and he slumped down to the ground.  
  
The two of them ran for the cover of their jet, where Chris was already crouching. As they ran Razor slipped his hand into his glovatrix, it went in too easily, T-bone could only fit his first two knuckles into his glovatrix. With out missing a beat the two of them glanced at each other then tossed they're glovatrixes to each other, the two weapons passed in mid air, then landed in they're rightful owners arms.  
  
"T-bone, we've got to help that old man!"  
  
"Ok, I'll cover you," T-bone spun around and jumped behind a row of newspaper stands, peaking over the edge with his glovatrix aimed at the row of Enforcers.  
  
Razor ran towards the old kat, his mind racing through a million scenarios how his could have happened.  
  
Razor was feet away from the old kat when he and the young kitten suddenly exploded in a mass of purple flames. The shockwave sent him flying backwards. He ducked and rolled over to where T-bone was crouching behind the newspaper stands. The two watched in amazement as the flames died down and in their place stood the Pastmaster.  
  
T-bone quickly fired a net at the little goblin but he dodged it and shouted, "You are no match for me and will never be a match for me! Soon, when the time is right," his watch glinted in the sunlight, "I will be more powerful than ever before!" He threw his arms into the air and shouted something in an ancient dialect, and a dragon swooped down, picked up the Pastmaster and lifted him up into the air.  
  
The SWAT Kats spun and ran for their jet, leaping up into the cockpit.  
  
Razor turned to flip a switch on and saw Chris standing on the pavement watching them, he shouted, "thanks!" to her before the cockpit cover shut and the jet shot vertically upwards into the sky.  
  
This left Chris standing on the pavement with the Enforcers. "Get her!" Feral shouted to the Enforcers standing around him.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The Turbokat sped across the sky quickly gaining on the dragon.  
  
"Got a lock on that thing yet?" T-bone shouted to Razor.  
  
"Easy target," Razor answered, "but were still too close to the city. If that thing goes down, it's going to go down hard."  
  
"I can fix that," T-bone pushed the Turbokat to an even faster speed. They quickly gained on the dragon. T-bone slowed the jet slightly so that they were moving the same speed as the dragon, and flipped the jet over so it was up side down. This brought the SWAT Kat's face to bony face with the Pastmaster.  
  
T-bone turned the plane hard to the left so it flipped under the dragon, clipping one of it's wings and throwing it of balance. T-bone then brought the plane up hard underneath the dragon, throwing it even more off balance. The Pastmaster clung to the dragon with all his might, shouting orders in that weird ancient dialect. The dragon grabbed the jet's wing.  
  
T-bone hit the throttle and the jet, with dragon and Pastmaster attached, went streaking off towards the desert.  
  
T-bone struggled with the controls of the jet, "Tell that thing to hold still! If it doesn't stop moving were going to crash!"  
  
"This I can handle," Razor started arming an electric shock missile, "maybe."  
  
"Maybe? What do you mean maybe?"  
  
"This will either disable the dragon, or really piss him off."  
  
The jet lurched suddenly, and began to shake uncontrollably, "whatever you do, do it fast! This thing is going to pull the plane apart!"  
  
"Just have to program it so that I control the path of the rocket, almost got it, now! Electric rockets, away!" Razor hit a button and a small rocket shot out of a launcher on the bottom of the Turbokat, circled around and hit the dragon in the side, just below the wing. A surge of electricity shot out of the rocket and entered the dragon's body. The dragon roared and released the jet, and began tumbling through the air.  
  
"Yes!" T-bone shouted, regaining total control of the jet. He pushed the jet into a dive after the tumbling dragon. Suddenly a swirling purple portal appeared just below the tumbling dragon. The dragon and Pastmaster fell into it, and it disappeared.  
  
"Crud!" T-bone shouted, slamming his fist into the Plexiglas cockpit window. "We were so close!"  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Get her!" Feral shouted to the Enforcers standing around him.  
  
Chris warily watched the Enforcers slowly approaching her, 'this is not good,' she thought. She looked around, a phrase she remembered from science class flashed randomly though her head, fight or flight?  
  
There were over 20 Enforcers around her, fight was out of the question.  
  
That left flight.  
  
Her motorcycle was 10 feet to the right of her, facing down the street away from the Enforcers. She realized that the red motorcycle was sitting a few feet to the right of her, apparently left by the SWAT Kats She wondered vaguely if she could run faster than the Enforcers and make it to her motorcycle. Not a chance, she thought. She was fast, but not that fast. She spun and jumped onto the SWAT Kat's motorcycle, started it, hit the throttle, stalled it, swore, re started it, and took off seconds before the Enforcers grabbed her.  
  
"Get in your cars! Chase her!" Feral shouted jumping into his own squad car and lead a pack of 5 or 6 cars down the street after her.  
  
'This is bad,' she thought again to herself. She went over her list of disadvantages in her head. One, she didn't know the city, two, there was one of her and 20 of them, three, well, there probably was a third disadvantage to her but she couldn't figure out what it was just then. Ok, what where her advantages? One, she wasn't on foot. It's hardly an advantage but it was the best she could do at the time.  
  
'This is very bad,' she thought to herself. She glanced at the speedometer, 'this motorcycle goes very fast,' she thought to herself, ''I knew I had more advantages.''  
  
She popped into the next gear and gunned it, weaving in and out of what little traffic there was. "I wish I knew where I was going," she wondered out loud. She heard a beeping should and glanced down where the speedometer was only moments ago, in it's place was a tiny computer screen. Displayed on it was a map of the city, a red dot flashed on it, mapping her position. A flurry of blue dots marked the road just behind her, the enforcers. "GPS," she said out loud, "high tech. I wish it could tell me the best way to get out of this."  
  
A red line appeared, weaving in and out of the streets. "Wow!"  
  
"Turn right," a mechanical voice instructed her.  
  
"It talks too?!" she said as she skidded around the corner, "I gotta get me one of these!"  
  
"Left," the voice ordered.  
  
She squealed around a corner and down a narrow alleyway dodging trashcans and piles of discarded newspapers.  
  
She glanced at the screen, a blue dot was located just ahead of her.  
  
She hit the throttle, the end of the alley was just ahead of her. The GPS map said to cross the street at the end of the alley and shoot down the next one. Trouble was, the Enforcer cruiser was in the way.  
  
Chris leaned back and yanked the front wheel off the ground and the motorcycle wheelied over the top of the cruiser, breaking the windshield and smashing in most of the hood. She landed safely on the other side and took off down the next alleyway.  
  
The Enforcer in the cruiser recovered quickly and turned down the alley after her. He pushed the stuck together safety glass of the windshield away and fired his gun at her. Bullets ricochet off the walls around her and a few hit the black of the motorcycle, making dents and ruining the paint job but otherwise not doing any major damage.  
  
"Hostility detected," the mechanical voice calmly stated.  
  
"No shit!" Chris shouted at the computer. Damn, now what was she supposed to do? She couldn't shoot her gun backwards off motorcycles, she doubted anybody could, it just wasn't possible.  
  
"Suggested defense: Cement missiles," the mechanical voice continued.  
  
"huh? Wow this things got missiles too?!" She glanced at the screen and wondered how she was supposed to arm the missiles. Then an idea hit her, if this thing could talk, maybe it could listen too."  
  
"Uh, arm cement missiles?" She asked the computer. She felt the balance of the motorcycle shift slightly, she glanced behind her and saw a small missile launcher unfold out of the rear fender. Now, how to aim the thing?  
  
"Helmet not detected," the computer said. Helmet? Chris remembered the SWAT Kat's outfits, they had helmets on their heads, there must be something in there that could some how aim the missile.  
  
"Manual aim," she ordered the motorcycle, the screen changed from the GPS street map to a real time picture of the Enforcer cruiser behind her. Quickly, she let go of the handle bar with her left hand, and taped the screen with her paw, then grabbed the handlebar again.  
  
"Fire," she ordered.  
  
A wad of cement shot out of the launcher and hit the tire of the cruiser stopping it in it's tracks.  
  
"Right," the computer ordered her, she turned right and rode away to safety.  
  
Once she was sure there were no Enforcers following her she drove to the scrap yard and wondered about her next challenge. How was she going to get her own motorcycle back? (the Enforcers had impounded it for sure) And how was she going to get this motorcycle back to the SWAT Kat's? 


	4. oh ye of little faith

Chris marched into the mechanics shop where she found the two still working on her rig.  
  
"When will this be done? I need this to be done ten minutes ago," she said running her hands through her hair. She had to get out of Megakat and soon. She could only hide from the Enforcers for so long.  
  
Chance and Jake looked up from the rig.  
  
"It'll be a couple of days," Jake said tentatively, "what's the problem?" he knew what the answer would be.  
  
"Let's just say that Enforcers are after me and leave it at that. If I stay here then I'm putting you guys in danger too, I can't do that to you."  
  
She started pacing across the floor, "If this isn't going to get done then do you know where I can buy a truck? A big cheep one."  
  
There was a long silence, marked only by the sound of Chris' shoes on the hard floor.  
  
Chance glanced at Jake and they're eyes met, they had a silent conversation like this in a way that only friends as close as them could.  
  
"Stay with us," Chance broke the silence.  
  
Chris stopped, "What?"  
  
"Stay with us, we'll hide you."  
  
"No. Thanks but. . . if you got caught with me here. . . I couldn't live with that."  
  
Jake spoke up, "What did you do?"  
  
"Everything. Evading arrest, I messed up an Enforcer cruiser pretty bad."  
  
"Did anybody see you?"  
  
She snorted, "Only Feral and about twenty other Enforcers," she thought a second, "and the SWAT Kat's. I'm getting really confused about them. I'm not sure whose side they're on anymore. Probably not mine, I kind of jacked they're motorcycle." She stared pacing again.  
  
Chance inwardly slapped his forehead; he knew they had forgotten something. "You stole they're motorcycle?" he clarified.  
  
She shrugged, "I wouldn't call it stealing exactly, it was just kind of. . .handy. I plan on giving it back. I'm just not sure how."  
  
"Where is it now?"  
  
"Hidden in my trailer, the thing is pretty recognizable. I don't want somebody to drive by and see it." As an afterthought she added, "Or steal it, that thing is really high tech."  
  
"So what are you going to do?" Chance asked.  
  
Chris opened her mouth to speak but Jake cut her off, "She's going to stay with us."  
  
"No!" she protested  
  
"Don't be stubborn," Jake said, "You don't even have transportation."  
  
"I've got a horse!"  
  
"And the Enforcers have helicopters, jeeps, cars, motorcycles, and over 5,000 kats on duty."  
  
"He's right," Chance interjected, "you haven't got a chance running from them, stay with us."  
  
"So here I'm a sitting duck!"  
  
"Does Feral know you're here?"  
  
"No but-"  
  
"Then it's settled, you staying."  
  
Chris shook her head, finally giving in, "Fine, But I'm leaving tomorrow."  
  
"And you staying in the house," Chance added with a grin.  
  
"No!" She shouted, laughing.  
  
"Are you hungry? Let's order pizza," Chance said reaching for the phone.  
  
Chris realized she was starving and nodded.  
  
Forty-five minutes later she was sitting on the couch with the two mechanics eating her third piece of pizza (with the anchovies picked off and put onto Chances thick slice), and doubled over in laughter over the Fraidy Kat show. Jake rolled his eyes at the show but manages a chuckle over the way Chris and Chance were behaving. Every commercial break it was the same.  
  
"Have you seen the episode where Frady Kat was at the carnival and-" Chance would begin.  
  
And Chris would cut him off excitedly, "-and he runs into the ghost clown!"  
  
"And hides in the house of mirrors-"  
  
"-then sees himself in all the mirrors-"  
  
"-and then he trips and falls and says-"  
  
Here they would simultaneously say. "I hate clowns!" and they would fall over each other with laughter until the toothpaste commercials ended and the show came back on.  
  
At the back of her mind Chris wondered how she could have gone from being paranoid about capture to this state of utter bliss so quickly. There was something about these two that made her feel safe and carefree.  
  
Fifteen minutes later it all came crashing down. The show had just ended, and Chance and Chris had just started in on another round of, "have you seen the episode where." when Jake interrupted them, "I think you guys want to see this."  
  
Turning to the TV Chris saw a female reported with short, brown hair just beginning her report, "This is Ann Gora with Kats Eye news. Out top story tonight is a reported high speed chase through the streets of Megakat City today following an attack by the Pastmaster. The female suspect apparently captured the SWAT Kats, then released them after being threatened by the Enforcers Commander Ulysses Feral. When the Enforcers moved in to arrest her she fled on a motorcycle left by the Swat Kats."  
  
The image on the screen cut to a close up of Feral at a press conference standing behind an official looking podium with a mass of microphones stuck in front of him. "The suspect is thought to be a female kat by the name of Christie Pawmer," he said looking over the crowd.  
  
Chris managed a giggle, "stupid idiot couldn't remember my name," she snorted.  
  
Jake looked questioningly at her, "you told him your name?" The SWAT Kat in him didn't remember that part of the confrontation.  
  
"Yeah," she said, eyes fixated on the screen, "I went to see him earlier this morning to get some information on the SWAT Kat's. The name on my birth certificate is Chris Palmer," she answered Jakes unanswered question.  
  
".she is considered armed and dangerous, " Feral continued, "you will find a description of her in your press packets. Questions?"  
  
"Commander, was the suspect in any way involved with the SWAT Kats?"  
  
"Our investigators are looking in to it," he responded.  
  
"Where there any injuries?"  
  
"One officer sustained minor injuries when his cruiser crashed in pursuit."  
  
The screen cut back to Ann Gora, "again the suspect is Christie Pawmer, who is described as a tall, black kat, last seen wearing faded jeans and a T- shirt with 'Slurpie' written on it. She is wanted for charges of evading arrest, destruction of government property, and assisting escape."  
  
Chance muted the TV and Chris looked down at her t-shirt, it was one of her favorites. It had SLURPIE written across the top of it in big, bold letters with a black and white picture of an electric guitar screen printed below it. There were signatures here and there around the design  
  
"Damn it, I have to get rid of this now. It's one of my favorite shirts."  
  
"What's slurpie?" Chance asked.  
  
"This band, I dated the lead singer for a while and he gave me this shirt. They weren't really well known or popular, there probably not even playing together anymore, but he made all the guys sign it and he gave it to me and said it would be worth a lot one day when they made it big."  
  
"Are you guys still dating?"  
  
She shook her head, "no, we had kind of a falling out," she said with a touch of sadness.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chris woke up the next morning on Chance and Jakes couch. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and figured that she must've fallen asleep here last night. She had a blanket wrapped up around her and realized that one of them had thrown it on her last night. She grinned at this.  
  
She heard rattling in the kitchen and realized somebody was already awake. She rolled out of bed and folded the blanket up.  
  
When Chris walked into the kitchen she found Jake tackling the piles of dishes. She joined him and started rinsing the dishes and putting them on the drying rack as he finished scrubbing then.  
  
"You don't have to do that," Jake said.  
  
"I know," she smiled and continued rinsing them.  
  
"When I got up this morning and couldn't find a clean bowl to put my cereal in, I decided it might be time to do the dishes."  
  
Chris laughed, "When I was in collage, and my roommate and I both worked as waters at this restaurant. It was a great job because they fed us dinner, and lunch sometimes too, and the hardest thing we had to learn to do was write our names upside-down on the paper tablecloth. There was this one guy who worked there as a busboy who was just a son-of-a-bitch, I think his name was J.C.. One night, only half of the busboys showed up and we were really short handed so our supervisor made us wash dishes too. We didn't want to so we did about half of them and hid the rest around the kitchen. The best part when the manager found out, we blamed it all on J.C. and he got fired. It was great."  
  
Jake shook his head and laughed a little, "That's mean."  
  
Chris grinned, "I know, I felt a little guilty about it until he put a rat in out mailbox and egged my car. I figure we're about even."  
  
Jake snorted, "I somehow don't see hiding the dirty dishes being incredibly helpful in this situation."  
  
"Me 'neither, but I love telling that story," she started laughing again.  
  
About that time Chance came wandering down the stairs, yawning. "Why's everybody so happy? Wha'd I miss?"  
  
"Chris got a guy fired from his job and he put a rat in her mailbox," Jake paraphrased.  
  
Chance cocked his head, "what's so happy about that?"  
  
Jake shrugged, "I have no idea."  
  
This made Chris laugh harder.  
  
The three of them finished up the dishes, and Chris went outside to feed Horse. When Jake heard the door slam behind her he turned to Chance and tossed him a small square-ish thing.  
  
Chance caught it and asked, "What's this?"  
  
"It's a pager, I turned off the all the main alarms in the house and rerouted the signal to these. It'll vibrate if Callie pushes the alarm button. This way if the alarm goes off, Chris won't know it."  
  
"And then what? Make up some excuse why we both suddenly have to leave at the same time?"  
  
"It's rigged so that the phone in the garage rings at the same time. We only have to say that we have to go pick up some broken down car."  
  
"Won't she notice when we don't leave in the tow truck?"  
  
"Nope because we'll leave in the truck."  
  
Chance raised an eyebrow, "we'll fight Dark Crud in a tow truck? What are we going to do, throw a wrench at him?"  
  
Jake shook his head, "No, oh ye of little faith, watch," he took the pager from Chance, "remember the camera I installed in the Turbokat?"  
  
Chance shook his head, "No."  
  
Jake rolled his eyes, "I was telling you about the camera in my science magazine, and we decided that I would install one."  
  
"That was only two days ago."  
  
Jake shrugged, "I've got a lot of free time, now watch." With his claw he pushed a few buttons on the pager. The screen changed from the words 'Chance's Pager' written plainly across it to a detailed picture of the inside of the hanger.  
  
"Wow," Chance said, a few years ago he might have been more impressed but in the time he had known Jake he had realized that nothing was impossible for the smaller kat to accomplish.  
  
"This is a real time image of the inside of the hanger as seen by the Turbokat," Jake explained, "With these controls you can remotely guide the Turbokat out of the hanger and away to where we are waiting for it."  
  
"And see where I'm going on the screen?"  
  
Jake nodded, "Exactly it only works short range, within about 5 miles or so, and the controls are pretty basic, just enough to get the jet from point A to B without crashing, so no barrel rolls or dives."  
  
"One last question."  
  
Jake crossed his arms and leaned against the counter, "Shoot."  
  
"What keeps Chris from seeing the jet leave the hanger?"  
  
Jake shrugged, "I can't control everything, hopefully with a little luck she won't notice a thing." 


	5. She's going to clean up this town

Chris gazed with un-seeing eyes at the tv glowing in front of her. She was sprawled across the couch and GOD was she bored. While Jake and Chance were outside working on a truck that had just come in she had read the newspaper (and was a little frightened to see a grainy picture of her splashed across the front page, apparently from Enforcers HQ security cameras), flipped through all the TV guides, expired parts order catalogs, and greasy magazines in the house, twice. Now she was left to watch bad daytime TV. If every Enforcer in the city weren't looking for her she would be out riding Horse, or watching a movie or something. She felt like she was on house arrest, and with a picture of her released she was going to be stuck here for a long time.  
  
She sighed and reached for the remote resting on the coffee table. She had to tug on it slightly to free it from the sticky reside left by a hundred spilled soda's from ages past. She wrinkled her nose and whipped the remote off on her jeans, it was also a sticky gross mess.  
  
She tossed it back onto the table and went into the kitchen where she found a washrag. She dampened it in the sink then returned to the living room. She pushed the various TV guides and magazines off the table and scrubbed the table as best she could. She did the same to the remote then stacked the magazines neatly on the table.  
  
Returning to the kitchen she noticed that the table was also a sticky mess. She shoved the scattered objects on the table off the table onto a chair then scrubbed the table clean. Sorting through the objects on the chair she found newspapers going a month back, two forks, a steak knife, a greasy rag, and a wrench. She threw the newspapers and the rag away, washed the knife and the forks, and put the wrench back on the table. She sarcastically thought it made a nice center piece.  
  
An hour and a half later she had vacuumed the entire bottom story of the house, and the upstairs hallway. The upstairs and downstairs bathrooms were spotless, three sticky drawers in the kitchen were fixed, the squeaky closet door was oiled, and the kitchen was swept. In the closet she found a basket of dusty cleaning supplies with a small handwritten card saying "Dear Chance, hope this helps to keep the new house clean, Love Mom." Nothing in the basket had ever been opened.  
  
Armed with these supplies she spent another hour and a half cleaning the oven and microwave, mopping the kitchen floor, spraying Pledge on every piece of wood furniture in the house and scrubbing until she could see her reflection, and spraying Febreze everywhere in hopes to get the stale smell out.  
  
The house was cleaner then it had ever been (with the exception of Chances room, she didn't feel comfortable clean out his personal space and figured it might bother him too. Jakes room was already fairly clean). It wasn't that she was a clean freak by any means, she just needed something to do and felt that it would be nice to fix up the house for the two kat's who were putting they're tails on the line for a she-kat they barley know. To her, they were modern knights. So the house was clean and Chris was bored again.  
  
She wandered outside and found an old storage shed. She let herself in and started pawing through the various items enclosed within. She found a small tub of spackle(1) that wasn't quite dried out yet and used it to fill in a large crack in the wall above the couch. Stepping back to survey her handiwork she noted that the crack was gone, but the bright white of the spackle didn't match the off-white color of the wall.  
  
Back in the storage shed she found a half-gallon of paint that she hoped would match the wall color. She found a drop cloth and a paint brush and carried the bundle back into the house. She spread the cloth over the couch (she didn't feel like moving it and was a little afraid of what she might find underneath), then realized she didn't have screw driver to open the paint with. She went to her rig and returned with a screwdriver as well as her Pat Benatar CD. She shoved the CD in the mechanics CD player and hit play.  
  
As she stood on the couch and started to paint her favorite song, "Invincible" came on. (2)  
  
"We cant a afford to be innocent  
  
Stand up and face the enemy  
  
It's a do-or-die situation  
  
We will be invincible!  
  
And with the power of conviction  
  
There is no sacrifice!  
  
It's a do-or-die situation!  
  
We will be invincible!"  
  
She turned up the volume and started bouncing around on the couch swiping madly about with the paint brush to the rhythm of the music. When she had finished covering the spackle she jumped off the couch over the coffee table and started touching up marks and scratches in the wall, dancing and singing all the while.  
  
Just then the door opened and in walked Chance immediately followed by Jake. Chris threw the paintbrush onto the drop cloth and spun around belting out "It's a do-or-die situation! We will be invincible!" She grabbed Chances paws and shouted "Come-on dance with me!" with a big grin spread across her face.  
  
She drug him around the room, not so much dancing as spinning around in circle trying not to run into things. She jumped up onto the couch, then back down. "Switch!" she yelled and dropped Chances paws and grabbed Jakes, "No, no that's ok! I don't know how to dance!" he pleaded.  
  
"That's ok!" she laughed, "neither do I!"  
  
She started spinning and jumping madly about with him and he followed stiffly behind.  
  
"Look! Do this!" she shouted at him and started throwing her head from side to side so that her long hair flew madly about.  
  
Jake copied her but the effect was less dramatic. Chance started laughing.  
  
"Good!" she shouted, "now this!" She swayed her hips and snapped her fingers to the beat.  
  
Jake tried to copy but the beat was off and the hip swaying was just kind of creepy. Chance had tears running down his face he was laughing so hard.  
  
Chris laughed a little too, "Now this!" she reached her hands over her head had started clapping and moving her feet around.  
  
Jake tried to copy her feet but ended up falling down. Chris fell next to him and shouted, "are you ok?" through fit's of laughter. Chance was in hysterics. Jake was even laughing. The music faded out and the three of them fell silent except for the occasional snigger.  
  
Chance took a deep breath, "wow, it smells good in here," he managed before breaking down in laughter again.  
  
Jake sniffed the air, "what were you doing with the paint brush?"  
  
"Painting, genius," Chirs managed to pant out, "see?" she pointed to where the crack used to be.  
  
Jake sat up, "Wow this place is clean."  
  
Chance whipped tears from his eyes, "yeah," he touched the coffee table, "wow, it's not sticky. Why'd you clean everything up?"  
  
Chris shrugged, "I can only watch bad TV for so long. I like having something to do. I was going to start on my truck next. But I'm not going to do that anymore. I think I've killed enough brain cells inhaling cleaning products for one day."  
  
Chance stood up and stretched, "Boy am I hungry. I think there's some left- over pizza from last night."  
  
Chris scratched her head, "I might've eaten that, I was cleaning out the fridge and realized I was really hungry. Sorry."  
  
"You cleaned out the fridge? Wow!" Chance trotted into the kitchen, "Wow!" they heard him yell, "It doesn't smell like dead fish anymore!"  
  
Jake raised an eyebrow, "Wow that's quite the accomplishment."  
  
Chris stood up and shrugged, "I guess I'm just talented. Come on," she offered a hand to Jake and pulled him off the ground, "I'll buy you guys pizza. What do you want, the same as last night?" she asked, picking up the phone.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
A few hours later they found themselves on the couch watching Litterbin on late night TV. Jake was sitting at one end of the couch laughing his head off, Chris was lying with her head on his lap and her feet across Chance's lap and was also in hysterics. Chance was sitting at the opposite end of the small couch with his head resting his hand. He sighed, "Can't we change the channel? This is boring."  
  
Jake shook his head, "No way buddy, we had to watch Fraidy Kat last night."  
  
Chance sighed again, "Borrrrrriiiiinnnnngggg!" he grumbled.  
  
"Well," Litterbin said, tapping his note card on the desk, "It's Friday and we all know what that means."  
  
"Idiot of the week!" the audience shouted.  
  
"That's right ladies and gentlekats, this weeks honor goes to," the band played a drum roll, "the Enforcers Commander Ulysses Feral!"  
  
The three of them on the couch started screaming with laughter, even Chance.  
  
"Chance, you cannot tell me that you don't find this hilarious!" Chris said, gesturing at the screen.  
  
"It only just now got interesting," Chance retorted.  
  
"Yes that's right Ladies and Gentlekats, only our beloved Commander Feral could let this she-kat get away." The image on the screen cut to picture of Chris with a sweet smile on her face. The photo had obviously been edited.  
  
Jake and Chance abruptly stopped laughing. Chris laughed harder, "Oh, come on you guys, I don't smile like that! And Feral is an idiot. Even I'm still trying to figure out how I got away from him."  
  
Litterbin continued, "Only I could get this rare footage captured by a kat with a home video at the sceen of the inident.  
  
A cartoon drawing of Chris and Feral appeared on the screen.  
  
Chris sat up, "uh-oh. I have a bad feeling about this."  
  
On the TV the cartoon Feral shouted "Stand down villain!"  
  
The cartoon Chris replied in a high pitched voice, obviously done by a he- kat, "Who? Little 'ol me?"  
  
Chance sniggered.  
  
The real Chris rolled her eyes, "That is not funny."  
  
Cartoon Feral shouted, "You can't escape! Enforcers! Get her!"  
  
Suddenly the screen went black and the lights went out.  
  
"Hey! What happened?" Chance exclaimed.  
  
Jake looked around, "Power outage."  
  
Outside they could hear the wind screaming and there was the sound of rain pounding on the roof.  
  
The three of them got up and found they're way to a window. Rain pattered against the glass. Lightning flashed across the sky.  
  
"Stupid weather channel," Chance grumbled, "They said slightly cloudy with a chance of showers. They didn't tell us we were going to need to build a boat."  
  
"Is Horse going to be ok?" Jake asked.  
  
Chris nodded, "Yeah, probably. I'm just going to put him in the trailer. I'll put the SWAT Kat's motorcycle," she thought a moment, "somewhere else. Mind if I stash it behind some junk?"  
  
"Yeah go for it," Chance said, "Want some help?"  
  
"No I'll be fine. But a jacket might be nice."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~  
  
Chris came back into the house about ten minutes later whistling "Invincible." She shook the water of the jacket Jake had lent her and hung it by the door. She kicked off her shoes and skipped into the kitchen. She slid across the floor in her socks and sang out, "And with the power of conviction," Chance joined her in singing, "we will be invincible!"  
  
Jake shook his head, "You two are nuts."  
  
"Hey shut up, I love that song," Chris said sitting next to him at the table. She shook some water out of her hair, "It's raining dogs out there!" (a/n sorry, I couldn't resist)  
  
It didn't take much for Chance to convince Chris to sleep on the couch again.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
1) Spackle is this putty stuff that you use to fill in small cracks  
  
2) This is an actual song called "Invincible" sung by Pat Benatar, I  
didn't write it, I have no idea who wrote it. And please don't sue me  
for ripping it off. This song is kind of an important part of the story  
line and it's a really cool song to boot. To listen to this song go to  
(copy and paste it into the place where you write these things):  
  
www.benatar.com  
  
Click on listen (or a button that says something similar to that, ff.net  
is being annoying and not letting me put in the hyperlink, even thought  
I'm not making it a hyper link!) Scroll almost down to the bottom of the  
page. Just bellow a big logo of the Mark & Brian Christmas show (Mark  
and Brian kick ass by the way), and a smaller logo of the Arrow 93 FM  
button there is a logo for Off the Record with Joe Benson, followed by a  
whole bunch of links. Click on the one that says, "Part 1, July 14,  
2001" about a minute into this sound clip the song "Invincible" is  
played. 


	6. and the world is spinnin a little too fa...

When Chris woke up in the morning she was not surprised to find Jake already up and about.  
  
Yawning she wandered into the kitchen where she found Jake frying eggs. "Morning," she said pouring herself coffee.  
  
"Uh, hi," he replied, "Sleep good?"  
  
She nodded, "Yep really good." She set her coffee on the table to cool and walked over to the window. The sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Puddles dotted the yard. She turned and started to walk back to the table, "That was quite the storm last-" suddenly her foot hit a wet spot on the floor and her legs slid out from underneath her. She landed hard on her back. "Ow." A drop of water fell from the ceiling and hit her on the forehead. Then another. She lifted her arm and pointed at the ceiling. "Roof's leaking."  
  
"Huh? What was that?" Jake said turning around, he didn't see her anywhere, "Where'd you go?"  
  
"Down here," he heard her voice coming from behind the table. He walked around and saw her sprawled on the ground and crouched next to her. "Whoa, what happened? Are you OK?" he asked, concerned.  
  
"Fine," she replied sitting up and rubbing her head, "Just seemed like a good day to take a trip."  
  
He offered her a hand and lifter her up. Once fully upright she twisted around to look at her back, now drenched with water. She shook the water out of her tail then looked from the puddle on the floor to the ceiling.  
  
"Roof's still leaking," she said and left to go change out of her soggy clothes.  
  
Jake quickly cleaned up the puddle and put a large pan under the drip to catch the water.  
  
When Chris came back there was a plate of eggs waiting for her at the table, "Wow," she said as she sat down, "that's service. Thanks."  
  
"No problem," Jake said, scraping the last of the eggs onto a plate for Chance, "I'll be right back." He put the frying pan onto the counter and jumped up the stairs, taking them two at a time and yelling, "Chance! Get outta bed!"  
  
Jake reached the top of the stairs and found his foot sinking into a soggy patch in the rug. He looked up and saw that the roof was leaking here too.  
  
"Crud," he muttered shaking droplets of water off his foot. "Chris!" he shouted down to her, "Clean up on isle twelve! Bring another pot up here will ya!"  
  
"No problem!" she shouted back to him.  
  
He continued walking down the hall and found himself standing in another soggy spot just outside Chances door. "Make that two pots!" he shouted down to her.  
  
A few seconds later she came bounding up the stairs. Finding the first wet spot she dropped the first pot, and when Jake pointed out the second spot she put the second pot down.  
  
Jake tapped on the door, "Chance get up! We have to fix the roof!"  
  
A groan was heard from within. The groan slowly got louder, then turned into and odd mix of babbling and cursing.  
  
Jake and Chris exchanged confused glances.  
  
A few syllables came drifting trough the wall, "Wet," there was a lot of thrashing, "Water? Water! Soggy wet water!" an odd groggy groan shout came through the wall, followed by a loud thumping noise.  
  
Jake pushed Chris against the wall, "We might want to stand back."  
  
Suddenly the door flew open and a soggy Chance stood before them in his boxers. He was breathing hard and had water dripping off his hair and his fur was stuck in big wet clumps all over his body.  
  
He gestured madly back at his bed, "Wet! Water! Soggy!" he made a gesture where he held his left hand up high and dropped it into his right, "Water dripping on me all night!"  
  
Jake and Chris looked at him blankly then broke up laughing.  
  
"Not funny!" he grumbled spinning on his heel and striding off down the hall, he reached into the bathroom and grabbed a towel on his way past.  
  
Turning to glare at Chris and Jake, who were still laughing at him, he didn't see the pot sitting at the top of the stairs.  
  
"Chance!" Jake shouted, seeing what was about to happen, "look out!"  
  
Chance put his foot right into the pot, he glare turned to a look of surprise and then horror as he lost his balance and teetered precariously at the edge of the stairs. He grabbed for something, anything to hold onto as he fell faster downward. His hands found nothing but his foot popped up and by some stroke of luck caught on the banister, arresting his downward fall. Chance yelped with pain as the banister dug into his foot and then again as his body slammed into the stairs. His foot held and he didn't slide downwards any farther.  
  
Jake and Chris ran to him and half carried, half dragged, him back up the 4 or 5 stairs and laid him out on the floor in the hall.  
  
Jake crouched by his head and looked into his eyes, "Buddy," he said seriously, "Kats are supposed to land on our feet. Are you ok?"  
  
"Must've slipped my mind," Chance grumbled, "I'm fine. Still soggy, but fine."  
  
Chris looked him over, he had a long gash across his forearm, just below his left elbow. She reached out and touched it, "Ow!," Chance hissed, jerking his arm away.  
  
"Relax Chance." Chris said reaching for it again, "We need to clean this up. Can you walk?"  
  
"Yes! I can walk!" he shot back, and clambered to his feet. "See?" he said stepping forward with his left foot, "I can walk just-" he let out a yelp of pain as he shifted his weight onto his left foot. Jake and Chris caught him as he fell forward.  
  
"Oh yeah, I can see that walking is high on you list of talents," Chris said, rolling her eyes.  
  
"That foot was just getting better too. That's the foot that Horse messed up a couple days ago. I just bashed it on the banister," Chance mumbled.  
  
They helped him down the stairs and laid him out on the couch. Chris went into the kitchen to find the first aid kit Jake said was in there and found their eggs. She balanced the three full plates and the first aid kit in her arms and went back into the small living room.  
  
"Here this'll make you feel better," she said, giving Chance his eggs.  
  
Jake took the first aid kit and Chris sat on the coffee table eating her eggs and watching Jake expertly wrap up Chance's arm.  
  
"Wow," she said through a mouthful of food, "where'd you learn to do that?"  
  
Jake shrugged, "Basic Enforcer first aid."  
  
"I'm surprised you can still do it so well, the Enforcers were a long time ago weren't they?"  
  
Jake glanced at her, "I'm not that old," he said with a grin. Besides, he thought to himself, It's not like I haven't had enough practice. Occupational hazards you could call it.  
  
"That's not what I meant," Chris back paddled slightly.  
  
"It's understandable," Chance said with a smile, "he seems like a geezer to my youthful good looks."  
  
Jake glared at him, "Be thankful you're already injured, or else I would rearrange those good looks right off your face, and kick you in the knee just for good measure. . ."  
  
"But you wouldn't because you need me to help you fix cars," Chance said, still grinning.  
  
Jake rolled his eyes, "And the roof. How are we gonna pay for that?"  
  
Chris spoke up, "I saw some old shingles in that shed out back yesterday. You could nail those on yourself right?"  
  
Jake sighed, roofing was a hard job but there was no way they could pay for a pro to come do it. It looked like he was going to be roofing himself, Chance was limpy for the time being , Jake couldn't expect him to go climbing around on a rooftop.  
  
"I'll help you as much as I can, but me and heights don't mix very well," Chris mumbled, half sheepishly.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jake hit his thumb with the hammer for the third time and swore louder then ever. These damn shingles just wouldn't stand still. The wind blew the piles of shingles off the roof and Jake was half thankful that Chris was down there to catch them, but she could be more helpful up here.  
  
Chris heard Jake swear for the third time and sighed. She felt so useless down here. She could catch the lost shingles and pull them back up onto the roof with the pulley they rigged but beyond that she was useless. She thought briefly of going up there to help but she quickly pushed that out of her mind, too scary. A particularly hard gust of wind threw the whole pile off the roof. She gathered them up and put them in the pulley box. She yanked them up to the top and as Jake gathered them he said, "Chris, do you think you could help me out up here?"  
  
Her heart stopped, "Up, there?" she said meekly.  
  
Jake nodded, "Do you mind?"  
  
"Um, yeah, I think that, I could, yeah. How hard could it be?"  
  
She walked over her ladder and out her hands on the first rung. They were shaking slightly. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her mouth was dry. She opened her eyes again and looked up the ladder. It seemed so high. . .  
  
Just concentrate on what's right in front of you, she told herself. One step at a time. She put her foot onto the ladder then leaned in slightly and quickly put her other foot up. So far so good. She put one hand up then the next and took another step up. Then another. And another. She wondered vaguely how high up she was but forced herself not to. Or tried to force herself not to, there the thought still was, ticking away at the back of her brain. She squeezed her eyes shut.  
  
She heard the door slam and Jake yell at Chance that he should go lay down and ice his foot. It seemed like they were shouting so far away. She heard Chance start whistling invincible. Unconsciously she found herself humming along  
  
"It's a do-or-die situation  
  
we will be invincible"  
  
Listen to the words, she told herself, this is easy, you can do this. Yeah right, the more cynical side of her brain mumbled.  
  
She took two more steps up the ladder. Suddenly a great gust of wind shook the ladder, her eyes flew open and she saw how high she was. She shrieked and the world started spinning around her. Her vision went blurry.  
  
"Chris? Chris!" she heard somebody shouting a long way away. She clutched the ladder and closed her eyes again. Oh god, so this was how she was going to die. She couldn't catch her breath and her breathing became labored.  
  
"Chris! I got the ladder your not going to fall."  
  
"You can't keep it from falling! You can't!" She moaned.  
  
"Yes I can, trust me. Can you take a step down?"  
  
She pressed her face against the cold metal of the ladder, "No. I can't move."  
  
"Try it, come on, nothings going to hurt you." She realized vaguely it was Chance speaking to her.  
  
"I'm going to fall." Her voice shook.  
  
"Chris look at me," this was a different voice.  
  
"I can't."  
  
"Chris, look at me." Jake. It was Jake.  
  
Slowly she turned her head and looked up into Jakes brown eyes.  
  
"Now listen to me," he said calmly, "Chance has got the ladder. It won't fall. Now take a step down."  
  
She nodded and glanced down, the word spun again and she couldn't catch her balance.  
  
"I can't! I can't look down," tears were running down her cheeks.  
  
"Don't look down. Chris, look at me."  
  
She did and he smiled at her, "Good now take a step down. Feel for the next rung with your foot."  
  
Still looking at him she did this, "I can feel it."  
  
"Now shift your weight onto it."  
  
"I'm going to fall." Her voice cracked.  
  
"No your not."  
  
Jake watched her shift her weight down.  
  
"Ok, now what?" She looked at him with frightened eyes.  
  
"Do it again."  
  
She nodded slightly and felt for the next rung. She started to shift her weight onto it. Suddenly her foot slipped off the rung. She fell screaming through the air and landed in Chances arms, gasping for breath. Jake was down in an instant and she threw her arms around his neck, sobbing into his shoulder.  
  
Jake put his arms around her mumbling, "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chris sat on the couch, leaning against Jake with a blanket around her. She gazed off into space as she spoke, "It's so embarrassing. I strive to be strong, tough. I always just had to be. A had a bunch of brothers and an alcoholic father. He was abusive, and fear was always kind of a natural state at home. I learned to live with it, to block it out. That's why it's so weird that this fear takes over me like this. I hate it. I'm sorry you guys had to deal with it." She paused, "Thanks. I don't think I could've made it as far up as I did with out Chance's whistling."  
  
Chance raised an eyebrow, "I was whistling?"  
  
Chris nodded, "Yeah, 'Invincible'"  
  
Chance laughed a little, "A big lot of good being higher did you. . .When I was a kitten I used to love climbing up on top of the fridge. I fell off once and banged myself up pretty bad, had to go to the hospital and get 9 or 10 stitches." He noticed the looks he was getting. He shrugged, "Just saying that it's a valid fear. That whole fear of falling thing."  
  
"It's not the fall that hurts," Jake pointed out, "It's the landing."  
  
"Oh yeah, the way you guys are talking I want to run right out and climb something." 


	7. Not so good

Chris jerked awake. She rubbed her eyes and squinted through the darkness, taking a moment to realize just where she was. Oh yeah, on the couch in the living room at the mechanics shop.  
  
She yawned wondering what it was that woke her up. Oh well, no matter. Closing her eyes and rolling over she thought she heard thunder in the distance. She groaned, realizing that that meant another storm and the roof still wasn't totally fixed thanks to her. With that thought gnawing at her she realized she's never get to sleep. She flipped her feet off the couch and stood up, stretching.  
  
Yawning again she wandered into the kitchen and stared out the window that overlooked the city. She was surprised to see that it was a clear night, no rain or storm in sight. She also noticed flashes of light and bright dots darting around the sky, presumably Enforcer jets and helicopters. Something was happening.  
  
Without hurrying, Chris shuffled back into the living room and flipped the TV on with the volume low so she wouldn't wake Jake and Chance.  
  
A shaky camera shot showed a floor near the top of that really tall building in Megakat city. Chris couldn't recall what it was called exactly, just that bad guys seemed to flock to it. She watched intently as nothing happened.  
  
Nothing continued to happen.  
  
Something then tried to sneak up behind nothing and scare it into happening but nothing turned around at the last second and scared something away.  
  
So nothing, now quite smug with itself for preventing something from happening stuck it's tongue out at the now shamed and running away something and completely missed an even bigger something else preparing for fontal assault.  
  
But by then, it was too late. (A/N sorry, I just spent all day at school shouting Monty Python lines at my friends so I've kinda got it on my mind. For those of you who have no idea what those last lines meant, here it is in English (well, less strange English anyway: Nothing happened for a very long time.))  
  
Suddenly, the windows on the top floors of the building shattered and a purple light came streaming out of them. The camera man turned and ran down the street a ways, trying to avoid the falling glass and metal. For a minute or so, Chris couldn't see anything on the screen except for a shot of the camera mans feet jumping madly about. The screen cut to another shaky shot, but this time the camera was in a helicopter that was flying around the top of the building.  
  
The TV showed the Turbokat landed on top of the building, then paned down to look in where the windows once were. Inside, everything was bathed in an eerie purple light, Chris could just see the outlines of two cats, a big burly one, and a smaller one, the SWAT Kats. T-bone was throwing himself against a door, trying to break it down. Razor pushed him back and fired a small missile out of his glovatrix. The missile left a black mark on the door, but did nothing to make it move.  
  
Suddenly, the door exploded outwards throwing the SWAT Kats back and out the broken windows. The camera shot lurched, then panned down to see a metal grappling hook latched over the side of the helicopter tred, T-bone was dangling from the other end. Razor continued his downward fall, uninhibited. Razor was 50 ft above the ground and falling, with no hope of being stopped. Chris was on the edge of her seat, gasping for breath.  
  
There was a flash of silver and Razor was plucked from the sky by an Enforcer chopper. It swooped up and the camera caught a glimpse of Razor dangling from the end of a rope.  
  
The image on the screen cut back to the camera man on the ground showing Razor slowly being lowered to the ground, a grappling hook wrapped around his abdomen. Off-screen, T-bone dropped to the ground. Something caught in Chris brain as T-bone limped on. He went to Razor and started talking to him, Chris turned on the volume.  
  
". . .dy. Come on' buddy wake up..." Chris noticed a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around T-bones arm. "...kat's are supposed to land on their feet."  
  
Razor stirred slightly and said something that the mic on the camera didn't catch. T-bone continued seriously, "Come on, up. We need to get out of here."  
  
T-bone pulled a small item out of a pocket and started fiddling with it. There was a rushing sound and a rustle of debris as the VTOL on the Turbokat brought it down on the street somewhere off screen. Hoisting Razor up on his shoulder, he hobbled to the jet and put Razor gently in his seat. Jumping into the pilots seat, T-bone closed the top, and took off.  
  
A female kat in Enforcer uniform ran on screen and, shading her eyes, watched the Turbokat fly away.  
  
"Lutenant!" a reporter shouted at her and rushed forward, "Can you tell was what's going on here? Is Razor going to be alright?"  
  
Felina Feral turned to the camera, "We appear to have an attack by the Pastmaster. We ask that civilians stay away from the area."  
  
She turned and jogged back to her helicopter. The reporter turned to the camera, "Apparently this is an attack by the Pastmaster. The Enforecers ask that. . ." Chris turned the volume off again.  
  
There was that low thundering sound again, where was that coming from? An earthquake? No, she'd lived though those before, this was-  
  
Her thoughts were interrupted when T-bone crashed though the door, cradling Razor in his arms.  
  
She jumped back screaming, "What are you doing here?!"  
  
T-bone looked at her, the slowly limped over to the couch and lay Razor down.  
  
"Oh my god," she whispered, it was all coming clear to her now. T-bone's limping, the bandage on his arm, that was from the crash an the stairs. His words echoed in her ears, "kat's are supposed to land on their feet." The same words Jake had uttered that very morning. They were ex- Enforcers, kicked off the force, gone on to live the life of vigilante's. . .it all made sense.  
  
"You're..." she choked, "Oh god, Jake!" She rushed over to him and started pulling his helmet off. He weakly put his arm up to stop her.  
  
"It's ok, buddy, she's knows," T-bone, Chance, whoever he was said, "I'll go get the med kit."  
  
Trying to hide the tears streaming down her cheek, Chris took his helmet and mask off she looked over his head for any injuries, none were apparent, the helmet was for more then just looks. "Jake, honey, can you feel you legs? Wiggle you toes for me." She watched as his toes moved weakly around.  
  
She started unzipping the top of his flight suit, and pulled it down to reveal a nasty gash across his chest. She figured he probably had a few broken ribs too, that grappling hook that had caught him had saved his life, but not with out some cost to his health. T-bone came back with a med kit and a bowl with clean water.  
  
"You were right. . ." Jake muttered softly.  
  
"Right? Right about what?" Chris asked while squirting iodine into the water.  
  
"Falling," he gasped, "It's a scary thing."  
  
Chris snorted, "You had to experience it first hand to figure that out?" She soaked some gauze in the iodine/water solution and started cleaning out his chest wound.  
  
Chance watched as Chris worked on the wound. She turned to him, "Do you have any super glue?"  
  
"Super glue? Yeah, why?"  
  
"It's almost identical to the glue that doctors use to close up big gashes like this." Chance found some in the kitchen and brought it in to her, as he handed it to her Chris noticed that his bandage from this mornings trip was blood soaked, and another gash was cut just below it, this one running the length of his forearm. Chris grabbed his arm, "Nice, I'll clean you up next."  
  
Chance pulled away, "I'm fine."  
  
"I don't care, I didn't spend all day yesterday cleaning the house so you could bleed all over it."  
  
She glued Jake up in silence, then examined him for any other wounds, finding none she turned to Chance, "Sit," she ordered then began cutting away the bandages. "Ow" he hissed, "I've got better things to do then sit here and get babied, I've got to go catch bad guys."  
  
"Relax, this'll take three minutes," she paused then looked him in the eyes, "How do you plan on doing that, catching bad guys, pray tell. Last time didn't go so good and now there's only one of you."  
  
"Hey I'm still here," Jake mumbled.  
  
"That's not saying much," Chris said, turning back to the bandage.  
  
Jake flatted his ears, "I resent that."  
  
"No you resemble that," Chance cut in, "She's right, your not going anywhere tonight."  
  
"Are you going Chance?" she asked "Or T-bone. What am I supposed to call you now?"  
  
Chance flashed a smile, "When I've got this spiffy suit on I'm T-bone."  
  
"Me too," Jake piped up, "except not T-bone. Razor. I'm Razor."  
  
"You're delirious," Chris sighed, "What are you going to do?" she asked T- bone again.  
  
"Go back."  
  
"Do you have a plan?"  
  
T-bone nodded is head, "Sure."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Still working out the minor details. And the major details. And all the details in between."  
  
Chris sighed, "Great plan. Foolproof. Sure to work." She finished tying up the bandage.  
  
"I'm a mastermind aren't I?" T-bone quipped.  
  
"Couldn't the Enforcers handle it? They've gotten the same training as you."  
  
"Weapons aren't half as good," Jake mumbled.  
  
"But there's more of them. I don't understand why-"  
  
"Look at that!" T-bone cut her off, gesturing at the TV, "The Enforcers are useless. I can't sit here and not do anything while, while that is happening to my city."  
  
On the TV there was a shot of the Pastmaster standing on the roof and holding a small kitten over the edge of the building.  
  
"He's got hostages now?" Chris punched up the volume on the TV  
  
"Now that the SWAT Kats have run away with their tails between their legs, the town is helpless to my control," the Pastmaster shouted, the kitten clung crying to his arm, begging not to be dropped, "All doors, including the one behind me, are booby trapped. If any are breeched, the hostages will be killed. Hostages will be killed one every hour until my demands are met and my queen is brought to me." With that he dropped the kitten over the edge and turned back into the building.  
  
Chris turned away as T-bone switched off the TV set.  
  
"You see? You see why we have to stop him? You see why the Enforcers are helpless? They can't get those hostages. I have to. I just have to figure out how to get into the building."  
  
"Wait," Chris said, "He said something about his queen. Who's that? What if they gave him what he wanted?"  
  
"No!" T-bone shouted, "We can't give her to him?"  
  
"Who is she?"  
  
T-bone took a breath, "Callie. He wants Callie. Well, he's not getting her."  
  
"Window," Jake mumbled, "Get in through the window. Get the hostages out, let the Enforcers deal with the Pastmaster."  
  
T-bone shook his head, "I'm sure he's got the bottom floor windows booby trapped, too."  
  
Jake tried to sit up, "Go in through the top."  
  
"How?"  
  
"I can fly well enough to swing you off the bottom of the plane on a rope. You just have to swing in the window."  
  
"No way buddy," T-bone shook his head, "You are in no kind of shape to be flying an airplane."  
  
"I can!"  
  
"I won't let you!"  
  
"You can't tell me what to do!"  
  
"There's got to be another way!"  
  
"If there's another way you won't be able to find it," Chris mumbled darkly, "Not in time anyway."  
  
"See?" Jake said, "She's saying I have to go."  
  
"No!" she tried to still her shaking hands, "I'm volunteering," she swallowed, "Swing me out of an airplane." 


	8. Minichapter, cute aint it

Hey all, cute little mini-chapter for you. I was going to write more but this chapter demanded to stop where I stopped it. I'm going somewhere over spring break with no internet access but I will have my laptop so I might get a lot of writing done. In any case, here's some more story. Funny how this whole thing is going exactly the place I didn't want it too...  
  
~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"I'm volunteering, Swing me out of an airplane," Chris stared at her lap, fighting back tears. This was insane.  
  
Jake coughed, sending bursts of pain through his body, "What? No Chris. You can't-"  
  
"Don't tell me what I can and can't do. I can handle this."  
  
"But its not just the getting in that I'm worried about," Jake protested, "I can't let you do it."  
  
"I'm not asking your permission."  
  
Jake turned franticly to T-bone, "You wouldn't let her. I mean you couldn't...Chance," he called him by name, "please don't say your actually considering this!"  
  
"No, I'm not. I'm way past considering. If she's willing to go, I'll take her up there."  
  
"You can't be serious," Jake gasped, "We, no, YOU can't put her in a position to get killed by the Pastmaster."  
  
"If you would KINDLY not talk about me like I'm not here," Chris growled, "Besides, I took care of you two pretty well didn't I?"  
  
"That doesn't count," Jake said, thinking back to the day she had almost turned them over to Feral, "You snuck up on us."  
  
T-bone sighed, "Jake will you drop it? She doesn't have to have anything to do with the Pastmaster. She just needs to sneak by him, which shouldn't be hard."  
  
"But-"  
  
"Jake I'm doing this with your blessing or without," Chris cut him off, "I'd like to do it with but if your going to be an asshole about then I'm going to go without a second thought. Let me decide what I can handle."  
  
She stood up and went outside. The screen door slammed shut behind her.  
  
The SWAT Kats exchanged glances then T-bone stood and went downstairs to the hanger.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chris leaned against the make-shift coral and scratched Horse through the bars. She heard the Turbokat take off behind her but didn't turn to look. She fought back tears as she scratched behind Horse's ears. A lump was begging to form in her stomach. She felt sick just thinking about what she had just volunteered to do.  
  
She heard the door bang shut but again she didn't turn around. She heard the clank of metal against metal as a buckle on Jakes flight suit clanked against the metal pipe coral when he leaned against it right next to her.  
  
"T-bone went to scope out the tower. He wants to find out how much of what the Pastmaster said about what was booby trapped was true. Could turn out that it's easy enough to get in through a bottom window."  
  
Chris nodded and mumbled an absent, "Yeah," even though she didn't think that would be the case.  
  
"Listen," Jake said, "the device that holds you onto the rope, its totally fool proof. It will never break. You could hold a tank with it. The whole process is perfectly safe." It wasn't though and they both knew it. The system was good enough, but if the wind picked up or something interfered with the jet or...or what?  
  
"What you wanna do," Jake continued, "Is shoot the window out with your gun. You could bother with glass cutters and stuff, but that would take time and..."  
  
"... me not fainting," Chris finished his thought. Shooting the window would be faster and she wouldn't have to spend so much time being...she didn't even want to think about where she'd be.  
  
Jake gave her a few more tips and finished, "You'll fit into one of my flight suits I think. You'll have my helmet on too and I'll be right there the whole time to talk you through it on the walky-talky," he took a breath, "Are you sure about this?"  
  
She turned to face him, but could only see his dim outline in the darkness, "No. No I'm not sure about this at all."  
  
"You don't have to-"  
  
"I said I wasn't sure about it, not that I wasn't going to go," She was trying to sound angry, or tough.  
  
He noticed she was shaking, "Cold?" he asked her.  
  
"No. Yes. Oh god, I don't know. It's not the kind of cold you can fix with a jacket."  
  
Jake felt like he should do something for her, put his arms around her, be some sort of support. That's what Chance would do. Jake wasn't Chance though, and he did nothing.  
  
They stood there for a long time, watching the turmoil on the horizon.  
  
"It's kinda pretty isn't it," Chris said absently, nodding at the purple light shining in the sky.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Looks sort of peaceful from here. Like art almost. Hard to imagine that way over there there are kats, kittens even, who are fearing for their lives right now. One of them could be getting pulled out to be killed right now."  
  
Jake was amazed at how distantly she could make this observation, saying it as if untouched by any emotion what so ever. He stared at the horizon.  
  
Chris turned to look at him. He was pretty messed up right now. Broken ribs, bruised all over... he would probably like nothing better then to go to bed, maybe take a hot bath. And here he was...standing out here with her.  
  
The hanger opened and the Turbokat landed with a loud rumbling noise that cut through the quiet of the night.  
  
Jake noticed her looking at him, "What?"  
  
Chris shrugged, "Nothing," she took his hand, "Come on, lets go inside." 


	9. It's a long way down

Weird things happen with the names in the chapter. T-bone stays consistently T-bone, but Razor will flip back and forth between Razor and Jake depending if he's in SWAT Kat mode or Worried About Chris mode. You'll get it I'm sure.  
  
**************************************************  
  
Chris tugged the flight suit Jake and given her. On her body it sagged in some places and was too tight in others.  
  
T-bone nudged her, "Did you hear anything I just said?"  
  
Chris nodded warily, "Yeah. You put the VTOL on and hover the plane parallel with the roof. I-"she took a breath then said very slowly, "Jump out."  
  
"It's really more of a controlled fall," Jake corrected.  
  
"So I fall with control out of the jet, shoot through the 83rd story window and swing in."  
  
T-bone nodded, "Right."  
  
Jake, now wearing sweat pants with no top, sat down at a computer and began tapping at the keys. A map flicked across the screen in front of him. Chris leaned over his shoulder to look.  
  
"These are blueprints of Megakat Towers," he pointed at the screen, "You should enter the building here, and from there you should be able to go down the stairs, here, to get to the second floor, where the hostages are. If, for whatever reason, you can't get down the main stairs there are also some service stairs here. If worst comes to worst you can crawl through the ventilation system. Don't take the elevator."  
  
"When I get to the hostages, how do I get them out?"  
  
"This is surprisingly simple. Go down to the basement through these stairs. The city recently finished the building of a subway system. After T-bone drops you off, he's going to 'borrow' a subway car and meet you down there."  
  
"What kind of guard does the Pastmaster have over the hostages?"  
  
Jake shook his head, "We don't know. Probably a few cameras and a locked door. Disable the cameras and you'll probably have a good ten minutes before he notices. Maybe longer....maybe less," he paused, "Chris are you sure about this?"  
  
She forced a smile, "Yeah, no problem."  
  
T-bone pulled his mask and helmet on, "Time to go then."  
  
Jake stood and handed Chris a helmet, "Remember, there's a walky-talky in there. I'll be with you the whole time. Take this too," he handed her a glovatrix.  
  
"Why? I've got a gun," she subconsciously touched the cold metal at her side.  
  
"Just take it, please."  
  
She nodded and pulled it onto her hand, slightly surprised by how light it was.  
  
"Your motorcycle..."She said absently.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Your motorcycle, I have to give it back to you..."she thought of how hard it must've been for them to have to hide that they where SWAT Kats with her right on top of them, "I'm sorry for that time in the street, when I almost arrested you guys. I called you some...harsh things were said. Listen if something happens to me Horse needs-"  
  
"Stop talking like we'll never see each other again," Jake reached for her hand without even realizing he had done it, he tried to pull back but she held it firmly.  
  
"Your right," she forced a smile and willed herself not to cry.  
  
"Chris," T-bone called, "It's just come to the hour mark. Another hostage has probably died by now. Lets make this quick."  
  
"Alright," she called back at him without pulling her gaze from Jakes eyes, "I gotta go now," she said to him, more quietly.  
  
Jake nodded, "I know."  
  
She turned away and walked to the jet. She climbed up the wing and was about to step into the cockpit when she turned and stole a glace at Jake. Suddenly, she leapt off the jet and ran across the hanger to him. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. He pulled her closer to him and kissed her back, almost unable to believe what was happening. His brain tried for a second to work out just what was going on but he soon gave up and succumbed to the kiss. It was over in a second or a minute or an hour, too soon.  
  
Still holding her to him he said, "Don't go. Let me go."  
  
She shook her head, "No. You're hurt."  
  
"I've had worse."  
  
"I have to do this Jake, you'll be here the whole time right?" she tapped her helmet.  
  
He nodded, "That's right. Right there to talk you through it. You don't have to do this."  
  
"Yes," she grinned, this time a true smile, not forced or masked with darkness, "yes I do. I'll be fine." She kissed him again, more gently though, wary of his injuries.  
  
"One more thing," he said, handing a small, foil wrapped package out to her.  
  
"A powerbar?"  
  
"Yeah. Just in case."  
  
Chris laughed and tucked into a pocket.  
  
T-bone looked up from his pre-flight check and saw the two of them break away. Chris walked backwards away from him. And Jake reached slightly towards her, like teenagers, T-bone thought.  
  
The walky-talky on the desk next to Jake cracked to life, "What have you two been doing while I was at work?" T-bone quipped through it.  
  
Chris climbed gracelessly into the jet and with shaky hands buckled the straps around herself, pulling them tight.  
  
"Ever been in a plane before?" T-bone asked as the engines roared to life.  
  
"Once. I threw up," Chris gripped the edge of her seat.  
  
"Ready?"  
  
"No!" she screamed, too late as the force of the engines propelling them forward pushed her back into the seat. She watched at the light in the tunnel flashed by then closed her eyes tight. She felt her stomach dip as they took off. Her breathing was shallow and fast.  
  
The sun was just starting to rise over the city. It would have been a nice day by most peoples standards if not for the horrors that were occurring in Megakat towers right that moment.  
  
"Is it over yet?" Chris gasped.  
  
"Not quite."  
  
She forced herself to open her eyes. At first she could only stare at the seat in front of her and at the strange array of instruments located directly in front of her. Then she snuck a glance to her right. Out side the sky looked clam you could hardly tell you were even flying unless you looked down. Unfortunately, Chris looked down. Seeing the landscape flash by beneath them she gasped, "Doesn't this thing go any slower?"  
  
"I can slow down for you if you really want..."  
  
"Yes, please,"  
  
"...but we'll lose altitude faster then a duck with a hole in his butt."  
  
"Oh," while she wasn't exactly sure what the duck had anything to do with it she got the loosing altitude part. That meant falling, which meant crashing, which meant warped metal and blood and coffins and her not ever being able to eat ice cream again. Or breathe for that matter.  
  
She tried not to think about how high they were and instead concentrating on what she had to do. She skipped over the hanging out of the plane part and instead thought about getting downstairs to the hostages and how she might deal with anything she came across. Shoot to kill. While the SWAT Kats wouldn't agree with her philosophy, she thought it was a good one.  
  
The plane dropped down suddenly.  
  
"What was that?" Chris gasped.  
  
"Just a little turbulence," T-bone said calmly, "We'll be there soon. Why don't you climb on back to the cargo space and hook yourself up to the wire. It's a self-regulating descender, Razor programmed it to drop you to the 83rd floor. You don't have to worry about anything but holding on and getting through the window," T-bone turned in the seat and flashed a smile, "Don't get hurt or else Razor'll kick my ass."  
  
A thought flashed through Chris' mind, "Are you going to call me Chris over the radio? Won't somebody be able to pick it up?"  
  
"Yeah you're Chris. You gotta be a SWAT Kat to have a codename."  
  
Chris' heart sank. She shook her head, 'what?' she thought to herself, 'you were just expecting them to invite you onto the team? Don't be stupid. You're a wanted felon. And you hate jets.'  
  
She pushed a button with a shaking finger and the seat she was sitting in slid back into the cargo bay. She carefully stood up and found the wire. There was a locking carabineer at the end that she clipped to a loop on the fight suit (it had a built in harness).  
  
"T-bone!" She shouted into the cockpit over the growling engines, "How do I turn the radio on?"  
  
"I got a button up here! Hold on!"  
  
A low buzz filled her ears.  
  
T-bone's voice cracked over the radio, "Can you hear me?"  
  
She nodded then realized he couldn't see her, "Yeah. What's the range on these?"  
  
Jakes voice came on, "It goes through a GPS satellite that I hacked into. Don't worry, you'll always be in contact. You were supposed to turn the radios on when you took off T-bone."  
  
"Oh this is good," Chris said trying to ignore the tight knot in her stomach, "We haven't even started yet and we've messed up."  
  
"We're in position," T-bone said.  
  
Chris knees went weak.  
  
"I'm opening the cargo bay doors."  
  
Chris stood back and watched as the door on the floor slid open.  
  
"Chris," it was Jake, "Don't look down. Are you listing? Don't look down, don't even think. Stand at the edge and lean back. Can you do that?"  
  
"Don't look down. Don't look down." She chanted as she inched her way backwards towards the edge, "Don't look down. Don't look down."  
  
She took a deep breath and tried to stop shaking.  
  
"Don't look down." She took another baby step backwards and felt her foot touch nothing. There was the edge, just a quick glance to see where to put her foot.  
  
She glanced. She saw the ground 83 stories below. Her head swam, her knees knocked together...she did the only thing she could think to do.  
  
She flung herself as far away from the gaping hole in the floor as she could and began sobbing.  
  
"Ja-"she started then corrected herself, half amazed that she had remembered, "Razor!" she sobbed, "I can't do it! I can't! I looked down and I saw how high and I can't."  
  
She felt like she was six years old.  
  
"Chris, you have to. I didn't want you to go but you didn't listen. What happened to that? You're halfway there. Just close you eyes and go." Razor was bad at this pep talk thing. Jake wasn't much better.  
  
"I can't!"  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Scary. I'm too high, I can't."  
  
"You're not going to die. It's not going to kill you, it's perfectly safe."  
  
"No its not!"  
  
Jake knew she was right.  
  
"Chris," T-bone cut in, "I know this is hard, but I know you can do it. And I know that you can do it very soon or else very bad things are going to happen."  
  
"What?" Chris knew she had to help those people but it didn't sound like that was what T-bone was talking about.  
  
"T-bone, what's going on?" Razor asked gravely.  
  
"Guns. There is some sort of energy guns on the roof. Looks like some sort of anti-aircraft thing. I'm low enough that the radar hasn't spotted me yet but it's only a mater of time."  
  
Chris heart sank even lower. She wanted to be anywhere but here.  
  
Jake started his pep talk again, "You have to go Chris, you have to go now."  
  
"But-"  
  
"No buts! Close your eyes and lean out. It will catch you. You can do this."  
  
"Chris go. The radar is swinging around again there's no way it's going to miss us again." T-bone said, half angry.  
  
"I can't!"  
  
"You have to." T-bone said and grit his teeth. He shoved the jet hard left, throwing Chris out the cargo doors and into the abyss.  
  
Chris screamed all the way down. She was sure that she had surpassed the end of the wire and would fall do her death. She continued to scream and cuss up a storm even when she stopped.  
  
"Chris!" She heard T-bones frantic voice, "Shoot the window! Shoot the window! Get off the cable before we get shot down!"  
  
"T-bone you dirty son-of-a-bitch! I'm going to rip you apart limb from limb!" She shouted as a response.  
  
"Chris!" Jakes voice.  
  
"Damn it Razor I'm going to kill you too!"  
  
"Later! Get in the damn building already!"  
  
"I'll get in the goddamn building whenever the hell I goddamn want to!" She screamed as she reached for her gun.  
  
"Go!" T-bone shouted, "They've got a lock on the jet and the guns are powering up! You have fifteen seconds before I drop your butt and get the hell out of here!"  
  
She fired three shots at the window in quick succession. It weakened and shattered.  
  
"You'll be lucky if you can drop your pants after I'm done with you!" she shouted as she began to swing.  
  
"Ten! Nine!"  
  
"Get closer you stupid ball of fuzz!"  
  
"Six! Five!"  
  
"Closer!"  
  
"Three!"  
  
Chris swung into the large window and felt the ground under her feet.  
  
"Two!"  
  
She fumbled with the carabineer holding her to the wire.  
  
"One!"  
  
The carabineer came loose and was ripped from her hands as T-bone pushed the throttle and rocked off, narrowly dodging the shots from the anti- aircraft guns.  
  
"Yeah! Run away you, you son of a deranged tapeworm!" She shouted at T- bone.  
  
"Layoff," he cracked, "You alive aren't you?"  
  
"No thanks to you!"  
  
"Ah, there's the Chris we know and love," Jake said, relaxing slightly.  
  
"Speak for yourself," T-bone grumbled  
  
Chris took a deep breath then realized how close to the edge she was standing. She was inches away from where the ground stopped and the void began.  
  
She stuck her tongue out at it.  
  
She turned and strode away from it, making it just past most of the shattered glass before she collapsed, shaking, to the floor. 


	10. Chris does something right!

A reviewer pointed out that I made a BIG mistake in the characterization of the Pastmaster and I wanna apologize. I feel really stupid. Its true that the Pastmaster would not use energy guns. Without really thinking about it I threw these in to help heighten the suspense, and now that I think about it I should have used something else. I will defend myself on the cameras though. I wrote it (although I guess I didn't make it quite clear) as the cameras were security cameras ALREADY INSTALLED IN THE BUILDING. The Pastmater used them (however grudgingly) to his advantage because they were already there.  
  
Having said all this I would like to point out that there is a nice disclaimer at the beginning of the story saying I didn't claim to remember any of the characterizations, and so they would pretty much be my own. I will admit my mistake though. I should have been smart enough to figure out that a bad guy with the name Pastmaster wouldn't be using futuristic type stuff.  
  
Also, I would like to point out that because this story is published in serial form (one chapter released every now and then) I will not be making any changes to this version of the story to fix the mistake. If, however, I go on to publish this at another fan fiction site, or at a SWAT Kats site, I will make appropriate changes  
  
Big thanks to the reviewer who pointed this out! (I think : )  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chris lay gasping for breath. She felt so weak. Her limbs were heavy and she wanted noting more than to fall asleep...maybe take a bath.  
  
"How'r you doing?" Jake asked.  
  
"Tired."  
  
"The adrenaline spike just wore off. That's what the powerbar is for. You didn't lose it, did you?"  
  
Chris grinned and pulled the slightly squished package out of her pocket. With shaking hands she tore it open and began eating, it tasted awful but she was grateful for it.  
  
"Is this the only flavor? Tastes like sawdust."  
  
"It was that or tile scum. Just relax a few minutes and you'll feel better."  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
T-bone sighed as he whipped across the city. That was close.  
  
The subway system wasn't operational yet, it was planned to be opened sometime next month. The trains had been built and furnished a few months ago and they were now in the last stages of testing. They were stored here an there in un opened stations around the city. The closet one was the main street station, near City Hall.  
  
He came to a halt near the upper stories of City Hall and engaged the VTOL to lower the jet to the street. Something caught his eye as he descended. He turned just in time to see Callie cowering against her desk, turning away from some unseen danger.  
  
'Callie' T-bone thought, 'gotta save Callie'  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chris sat up feeling stronger. She stood and made her way towards the stairs. She pulled open the door and realized for the first time that she had 83 flights of stairs to descend. She sighed and started down.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Callie looked from her smashed SWAT Kat alarm to the creature in front of her, some sort of dragon or dinosaur from the past. There was a fire extinguisher in the hall, if she could get to that then-  
  
She didn't get a chance to finish her thought. Suddenly she found herself being pulled into the air and onto the shoulder of a large kat.  
  
'T-bone!" she shouted because, well, it was the kind of thing you shouted when somebody saved you from lizards of the past. She would know. She found herself shouting things like this more often then she would like to imagine.  
  
"Hello Ms. Briggs," he said easily as he shot a rocket from his glovatrix at the large, floor to ceiling window, smashing it.  
  
He ran full speed towards the broken window and jumped out, landing on the wing of the Turbokat. The plane tilted sideways with the extra weight then righted it self when T-bone sat in the pilot seat, dropping Callie into the seat behind him.  
  
He closed the hatch and flew off, narrowly avoiding the dinosaur jumping out the window after them.  
  
"Thanks," Callie said.  
  
"You know its no problem. And your racking up frequent flyer miles. Frequent flyer miles can be exchanged for valuable merchandise such as-"  
  
"Where's Razor?" she interrupted, "Is he ok? I saw what happed on the news."  
  
"He's a little banged up but otherwise ok. I made him stay at home though."  
  
"What are you going to do about the Pastmaster."  
  
"We're on it."  
  
"We? But I thought you said that Razor was at home."  
  
"It's a long story."  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Razor I'm on the second floor," Chris said into the radio.  
  
"Alright. Be careful," came Jakes response.  
  
She pulled her gun and edged the door open. She saw a sparkling white hallway lined with wooden benches and security cameras. She took a moment to look at the pattern of the camera and realized with a little luck she would be able to move down the hall just outside of the cameras field of vision. Moving swiftly she made it to the end of the hall. From here the hallway turned left. She pressed herself against the wall and turned around the corner.  
  
Suddenly a hard object slammed into her head and she fell to the ground. The last thing she saw before she blacked out was a pair of black shoes then nothing.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Ms. Briggs, where do you want me to drop you off?" T-bone asked.  
  
Callie thought a second, "Where are you going?"  
  
"To the subway. We have a plan."  
  
"You need an access code to get down there. I'm coming with you."  
  
T-bone didn't argue. He was running late already.  
  
They landed and ran to the subway entrance. Sure enough it was sealed off. Callie punched a code in and the doors opened immediately. They jogged down the stairs into the subway.  
  
"T-bone," Razors voice cracked over his head set, "Chris is almost in position. How's everything on your end?"  
  
"Just getting down into the subway"  
  
"Good. Now remember to...." Razors voice was lost in static.  
  
T-bone halted, "Come again?"  
  
Nothing but static.  
  
"Razor I didn't copy that," T-bone took a few steps backwards.  
  
Razors voice came flooding into the head set, "T-bone? T-bone do you copy?"  
  
"I'm here. Your radios don't work as well as you say they do. Reception in the subway is going to be if-y."  
  
"Oh-no."  
  
"I'll contact you as soon as I can. Over and out."  
  
He took off down the subway with Callie close behind.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chris opened her eyes to see a circle of blurry faces surrounding her vision. She blinked and squinted into the light. God her head hurt. What had happened?  
  
"She's awake!" the voice sounded distant.  
  
She shook her head, trying to bring everything into focus. "Where am I?" She asked groggily.  
  
"Megakat towers," a male voice said, "I was looking for a way to escape when I came across you. I didn't realize you were a SWAT Kat. I'm very sorry."  
  
Chris propped herself on one elbow and rubbed her head, "SWAT what?"  
  
"A SWAT Kat. The clothes give it away."  
  
"Oh, um. I'm not a SWAT Kat. I didn't quite make the cut."  
  
"Who are you then?"  
  
She sat all the way up and offered her hand to kat who was talking, "Names Chris," they shook hands, "I'm working with the SWAT Kats, one of them anyway. We have a plan to get you out of here. You are the hostages, right?"  
  
The kat nodded.  
  
"Who's in charge here?" Chris asked  
  
"My name is Devin. I think the kat your looking for is over there, Mike. He's been keeping everybody's moral up and organizing a kind of defense."  
  
Chris tried to stand but lost her balance and began to fall again, Deven caught her just in time. Good god her head hurt.  
  
She took a moment to find her balance then thanked Deven and introduced herself to Mike.  
  
He eyed her warily as they shook hands, "Tell me," he asked, "Are you a new member of the SWAT Kats? I was unaware that they were recruiting new members."  
  
She sighed and briefly outlined who she was, then she filled him in on the escape plan.  
  
He listened intently then asked, "How do I know I can trust you?"  
  
She wasn't ready for that, "Um, well..." she said the first thing that came to mind, "I haven't shot you yet," she shrugged.  
  
Mike laughed, "I suppose that's worth something."  
  
"Besides, who else are you going to trust?"  
  
Mike shrugged, "I guess I don't have any choice."  
  
"How did you end up as hostages?"  
  
"Office party. Were the only ones in the building."  
  
"How many children?"  
  
"Three. There were three anyway. The Pastmaster took one of the children and I can only assume the worst..."  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
T-bone forced the door to the subway train open then trotted into the cockpit. He looked at the array of buttons and levers in front of him.  
  
"Any idea how to drive one of these things?"  
  
Callie snorted, "Funny. I thought you were supposed to be the pilot."  
  
"It can't be too hard. Lets see, lets start with...this button."  
  
Lights flicked on in the passenger cars.  
  
"That's a good start, now then, this is an electrically run subway so there must be something to press to make the contact," T-bone said as he looked for what to do next.  
  
Callie leaned over and pressed a button, a low humming suddenly began beneath them. T-bone raised an eyebrow. Callie held up a book, "Training manual. Somebody must've left it in here by mistake," she flipped through the pages and pointed at various controls as she read, "Break, emergency break, blah blah blah, here we go. 'To accelerate, slowly press the acceleration lever forward.'"  
  
T-bone pointed, "That's this?"  
  
Callie nodded.  
  
He put his hand on it, "Here goes nothing." He pushed it forward and the train began to lurch forward. There was just enough time for them to exchange a triumphant glance before the lights went out and they screeched to a halt.  
  
"Crud!" T-bone shouted and slammed his fist down on the control panel. Immediately the lights came back on and the train began moving forward. He looked around in confusion then shot a lopsided grin an Callie.  
  
Suddenly the train died again, screeching to a halt.  
  
T-bone slammed his fist again, "Crud!"  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
He slammed again, "Crud!"  
  
He slammed three times in rhythm to his shouting, "Crud! Crud! Crud!"  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Ok," Chris said, "My partner, T-bone, the real SWAT Kat behind all this is going to meet us in the subway. He's probably down there as we speak. All we have to do is get from up here to down there. What can you tell me about what kind of surveillance you're under?"  
  
"There are a few cameras out in the hall, you probably saw them on your way in,"  
  
Chris nodded.  
  
"It's a simple matter to get one or two people by them but as many people as we have-"  
  
"How many are there?"  
  
"Fifty-two. There is also a guard, a pair of dragon-things, who come around every twenty minutes or so. They came and went just before you woke up."  
  
"Any idea why they don't stay?"  
  
"No. I've been trying to work that out myself. How do you propose we get everybody down the hallway?"  
  
Chris grinned, "That's the beauty of it. We don't go down the hallway."  
  
Mike raised an eyebrow.  
  
"I've seen the blueprints of this building. There's a fire escape," she stood and looked around, "there. It drops right down into the subway."  
  
"I've thought of that. The problem is we can't open that door without setting off the fire alarm."  
  
"Hold on a sec, Mike," she spoke into the radio, "Razor? Can you help me? I need to know how to turn off a fire alarm."  
  
*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
T-bones legs stuck out from underneath the console. Callie leaned over and held a flashlight, shining a blast of light into the dark space.  
  
T-bone was mumbling something about badly done wiring.  
  
"Can you fix it?" Callie asked.  
  
"Sure, but its going to take some time," he paused, tinkering and yanking on the wires, "You don't have a pair of wire cutters by chance, do you?"  
  
"Sure," Callie said sarcastically, "I keep an extra pair in my purse."  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Alrighty," Razor's voice cracked over the radio, "Just disconnect the main transfer line from the transformer box..."  
  
"Do the what-huh to the what-y what out of the what now?" Chris said staring in confusion at the control panel in front of her.  
  
"Yank the green wire out of the little black box."  
  
"Oh, right," Chris yanked the green wire, "Why didn't you just say so? Mike!" she called across the room, "The fire alarm is off."  
  
Mike jogged across the room, "Are you sure?"  
  
"Only one way to find out," she put her hand on the bar, closing her eyes she pressed it open. It clicked softly. "Success!" Chris grinned, "No alarms, no flashing lights. I did something right!"  
  
"You don't instill much confidence."  
  
She smirked, "I thought that was your job."  
  
"And I do it well. Everybody's ready to go. I split everybody into 5 groups of about 10, each with one leader. We'll all move together of course, but this keeps everything a little more organized. You'll be in front, leading the way. My group will bring up the rear, we're the fighters. The guard came and went while you were working on the door, so if we go now, we'll be long gone before they know whats up."  
  
"Lets hope."  
  
Mike turned to the crowd, "Alright folks! Lets move out."  
  
The crowd pushed forward with eager enthusiasm. They were ready to be out of there.  
  
The trip down three flights of stairs went quickly and without a hitch. Coming to the bottom of the stairs, that was the hitch. The bottom landing opened into a large hallway. Chris jogged down in and found a door. She grabbed the handle and pulled. It didn't open. She pushed, it still didn't open. She swore and kicked it. In frustration she pulled her gun and shot at the lock. Holstering her gun she grabbed the handle and shook. Still the thing remained firmly closed  
  
"Uh, Razor," Chris said into the radio, "I've hit a slight snag."  
  
"Whats that?"  
  
"A very large, very thick, and very locked door."  
  
"Have you tried shooting it?"  
  
"Of course I shot it, this is me we're talking about. The thing is built to withstand bombs."  
  
"What kind of lock?"  
  
"I dunno, there's a keypad. Electronic I guess  
  
There was a stirring in the hall behind her, she whirled around to find a tall kat standing behind her, "Chris," he panted, "Mike says to tell you that they're onto us. The guards are right behind us on the stairwell. We've managed to lock them on the first floor landing, but they're not going to stay there for long."  
  
"Tell Mike to hold them as long as he can, the door to the subway is locked."  
  
The tall kat ran back through the crowd. A young kat with white fur stepped forward, "Is there anything I can do?"  
  
"No. Wait, yes. See if there are any other ways to get down here and if there are then seal them off. Shove whatever you can through the door handles, pile stuff against it, whatever you have to do."  
  
The kat nodded and ran off, taking another kat with him.  
  
"Razor, tell me how to get through this door..."  
  
"I'm working on it..." came his stressed reply.  
  
There was a banging and clattering down the hall. Chris turned around to see two young kat running down the hall shouting, "They found another way in! They found another way in! We couldn't keep them back!"  
  
"Razor! Door! Now!"  
  
"I'm working on it!"  
  
"Work faster!" the first of the dragon things came around the corner, "Faster Razor! We've got company!" 


	11. the thrilling conclusion! Sort of

"Ha!" T-bone shouted as he climbed out from underneath the control panel of the subway.  
  
"But will it work?" Callie asked.  
  
"That, my friend, is the million dollar question," T-bone said as he pushed the acceleration lever forward. The subway began humming softly and moved forward.  
  
"What did I tell you? Am I a genius or what?"  
  
"Shh," Callie put her hand over his mouth, "Don't jinx it."

* * *

"Get down!" Chris yelled as she pulled her gun and shot at the dragons charging down the hallway. Glancing around she saw some large, heavy benches sitting against the wall.  
  
"Get the benches on there side!" she shouted at the white kat, "Make something to hide behind!"  
  
Chris leapt behind a trash can and shot at the pair of dragons charging down the long hall. They slowed slightly but the bullets did little to penetrate their thick skin.  
  
"Get down!" she shouted again, "Get down behind the benches!"  
  
"Razor! I need this door open!" she shouted into the radio as she knelt down to load another clip.  
  
"I've got a list of possible codes, but I don't know which one will open the door. You're gonna have to type them in yourself."  
  
Chris fired at the dragons, "I've kind of got my hands full here!"  
  
"It's the best I can do."  
  
Suddenly the door to the stairwell flew open and small band of kats charged out armed with table legs and other makeshift weapons. Mikes fighters.  
  
"To your right! Watch out!" Chris shouted. As a group they turned and saw the dragons only steps away. Immediately they turned and started defending themselves as best they could. One kat had a fire extinguisher. He pulled the pin and shot a foamy stream of retardant at the nearest dragons eyes.  
  
"Chris get to the door," Razors voice cracked in her ears.  
  
She leapt over the upturned benches behind her and reached the door, "Gimme the first code."  
  
"4, 6, 7, 1, 3."  
  
She punched it in but got a red light.  
  
"No, next one..." she looked up and saw a kat go flying as a dragon hit him. She had to help.  
  
Spying the white kat crouching near her she grabbed him and said, "Can you help me?"  
  
He nodded weakly.  
  
She pulled off the helmet and shoved it on his head, "Razors going to give you some codes. One of them will open the door. You need to punch them in."  
  
Chris pulled her gun and ran towards the fight. If she could close enough with the gun she could...  
  
She didn't get a chance to finish her thought. She found herself being held over a dragons head. It swung and threw her into the wall. He gun went clattering away. The glovatrix Jake had given her cracked against the wall, leaving a long crack in the white plaster.  
  
That's it! The glovatrix! There had to be something in it that could deal with these things. That's what it was made for, right?  
  
"Get back!" she shouted over the din of the small battle, which had split into two parts, "Stand back so I can get it with this!" The fighters jumped back. The dragon turned to her and cocked its head, then roared.  
  
Chris pressed a button and a net came flying out of the glovatrix, trapping the dragon against the wall.  
  
"Yes!"  
  
She turned to the other one. "Get away!" she shouted again, "I can get it with this." She pressed a button. Nothing happened. She jammed it again but it was obvious that hitting the wall had not been good for the glovatrix. It was a stroke of luck that it had worked before.  
  
The dragon began charging towards her. Instinctively she reached for her gun to find the holster empty. Glancing quickly around she saw it lying a few feet away by the wall. She dove for it then turned quickly to where the dragon should be to find him being pushed back by a stream of water. She grinned when she saw Mike holding a fire hose to keep him at bay.  
  
"It's open!" the white kat called, "The door is open!"  
  
"Everybody out! Come on, move!"  
  
The kats pushed forward and moved through the door and down the stairs.  
  
"Mike!" Chris shouted as she pulled one of the double doors closed once everybody was through "Come on! Hurry!"  
  
Mike started backing up, then dropped the hose and made a mad run towards the door. He dove through and Chris slammed it shut just before the dragon slammed into it, leaving a large dent.  
  
They moved quickly down the stairs, taking them two at a time.  
  
"There will be a subway waiting for us down there?" Mike asked breathlessly.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
They pushed though the last set of double doors and looked over the ears of the crowd to see that there was no subway waiting for them.  
  
"Your sure about that?" Mike said sarcastically.  
  
"Positive," Chris said through her teeth. Where was that white kat with her helmet? There. She pushed through the crowd to get to him. "Good work," she said as she pulled the helmet of his head.  
  
She slammed the helmet on and said, "Razor? Razor come in."  
  
"Chris. Ar....what ha...omin...bad."  
  
"Razor? You're breaking up. I can't hear you."  
  
"....way?...."  
  
"You're no help," she gave up on trying to talk to him and stomped over to Mike.  
  
"I sent out a few kats to secure the area. We could be here for a while."  
  
"Lets hope not."  
  
A kat came running breathlessly up to Mike, "There are two other entrances besides the stairwell. We closed them up as best we could."  
  
Suddenly a loud banging sound came from a door on their right. They ran towards it, looking through a small window they could see a dragon.  
  
Another banging sound came from behind them. Spinning they ran to the other door where they saw the same thing.  
  
Chris looked around for something to secure the door further with but Mike was a step a head of her. He pushed a large vending machine over and together they pushed it against the door. Running back to the first door they found a long, heavy bench to push against the door.  
  
More banging from the doors made Chris realize the urgency of the situation. Turning, she saw the vending machine move slightly.  
  
Crouching she saw a corner of the door being lifted up by a scaly claw. The vending machine jerked again.  
  
Glancing behind her he saw the bench against the other door begin to shift as well.  
  
Where the hell was T-bone?  
  
She heard a long, loud screeching sound as the vending machine was pushed aside. She pulled her gun and waited until she could get a clean shot.  
  
The dragon threw the door aside and Chris opened fire, but the bullets did little to hit its skin. She dropped the clip and slammed another in.  
  
She squeezed the trigger a few more times when suddenly she heard the click of a train on its tracks.  
  
Glancing to her left she saw the subway pull to a stop. T-bone gave her a little wave through the window. Chris shouted her displeasure at his tardiness at him.  
  
The dragon was now struggling to climb over the vending machine. She fired a few more shots but most missed the dragon and hit the vending machine instead. She shot one more and suddenly the vending machine exploded.  
  
Chris was thrown back and lay staring at the ceiling for a few moments before the sprinkler system came on, soaking her and everybody else.  
  
She stood up shakily and glanced over at the charred hunk of metal that was a coke machine. What made it explode? That didn't make any sense at all.  
  
She shook her head, no time to worry about that. She turned to the subway and saw that she was one of the few left on the platform. She ran towards it and jumped through just as the doors closed.  
  
Chris sat in a small puddle on the floor. She lurched slightly as the train began to move forward. She looked up to see T-bone jogging down the car towards her.  
  
"You're late," Chris gasped.  
  
"I'm here. I wish I had a camera. You look awful," T-bone grinned.  
  
"Shut up," she waived her gun in his general direction, "What took you so long?"  
  
He shrugged, "The train was broken."  
  
"Broken?" She said a little too loudly, "Broken? Your supposed to be able to fix these things," she nudged him slightly with the barrel of the gun.  
  
"That's enough," he said, yanking the gun out of her hand, "It isn't nice to poke people with loaded guns."  
  
She stuck her tongue out at him and started to say something when a scream broke out from the back of the train. The SWAT Kat and the bounty hunter turned and saw a dragon chasing them down the tracks.  
  
"Good god, do these things never quit?" Chris said running to the back window, "Shoot it out," she told T-bone.  
  
He took aim and cracked the window with two shots, one more and it should go.  
  
He began squeezing the trigger.  
  
"T-bone!" Callie cried out.  
  
T-bone jumped with surprise and before he could stop himself pulled the trigger. The shot went wide, missing the window and hitting Chris. She immediately wilted to the ground.  
  
"T-bone!" Callie called again, "The Pastmaster is on the tracks in front of us! There's a portal too!"  
  
T-bone looked from Chris' body to Callie and back to Chris.  
  
"She's dying!" a nearby she-kat yelled.  
  
He had to make a decision.  
  
T-bone left Chris and ran to the front of the train. 


	12. Surprise!

"Chris? T-bone? Chris! Come in!" Jake yelled furiously into the radio as he had been for the last half hour. He got nothing but static.

* * *

T-bone pushed through the door into the cockpit of the train. Callie pointed at the obvious.  
  
The Pastmaster stood in a little space to the side of the tracks. He was chanting and a swirling purple portal swirled around in the center of the tracks.  
  
"Hit the brakes!" T-bone yelled.  
  
"I tried! He's doing something to pull us in," Callie shouted back.  
  
The train rushed forward at an alarming rate as T-bone thought, he needed to hit the watch. There wasn't anything in his glovatrix that would cut it. Everything was non-lethal and it could trap the old gnome, but not fast enough to stop the watch. Besides, he wanted that watch gone once and for all.  
  
He felt the heavy weight of Chirs' gun in his hand.  
  
He shoved a side window open and leaned out, trying his best to take careful aim. Where was sureshot when you needed him?  
  
He squeezed the trigger, hitting the Pastmaster, missing the watch.  
  
He squeezed again, praying the bullets wouldn't run out on him.  
  
Miss. Miss. Miss.  
  
Hit! There was a faint shatter of glass and the swirling portal dissipated just as the train rushed through.  
  
"Ha!" T-bone shouted, and kissed the barrel of the gun, "Take that!"  
  
Suddenly the train burst out from below ground and into the pre-dawn light.  
  
"T-bone?" Razors voice crackled over the radio.  
  
"Buddy!" T-bone responded, "We did it! We made it out."  
  
"Yes! You got all the people?"  
  
"Yes, as far as I know."  
  
"And Chris is ok?"  
  
T-bone fell silent, he closed his eyes and sat down in the drivers chair.  
  
"T-bone? Is Chris ok?"  
  
"Look, buddy..."  
  
"T-bone what happened to her?"  
  
"He shot me!" Chris' voice cracked weakly over the radio, "That's what happened, the stupid jerk shot me!"  
  
"You're ok!" T-bone shouted happily, "Nothing happened Razor, she's just fine."  
  
"You shot her?!" Razor asked with disbelief.  
  
"In the shoulder. It hurts like hell and when I get my hands on him I swear to God-"  
  
"It was an accident!" T-bone grumbled, "I am not known for my incredible aim."

* * *

Callie looked up from the impromptu press conference she gave on the pavement to watch the Turbokat take off. She had met the she-kat who now sat in Razors seat only briefly. T-bone told her enough that she understood what an influence the girl had had on getting the hostages out. She had also seen a flesh wound on her shoulder and offered medical assistance but the girl had refused, and now they were flying away. Callie never even got her name.  
  
"Ms. Briggs," a reported shouted, shoving a mic in her face, "What do you know about these reports of a third SWAT Kat?"  
  
"God I hope so. Next question please."

* * *

The second Chris stepped of the Turbokat Jake ran to her and threw his arms around her.  
  
She pulled away in pain, "Ah. Jesus that hurts! T-bone shot me you know."  
  
"Sorry! Sorry. I was so...I mean..." Jake stumbled to find the words, "I feel like such an idiot."  
  
Chris kissed him lightly on the lips, "That's ok. I look like one. Were a perfect team."  
  
T-bone jumped down from the cockpit, "Don't I get a welcome home kiss?"  
  
Jake shot him a look.  
  
"He dumped me out of a plane too," Chris said through a slight grin, "Will you beat him up for me please?"  
  
"Of course, dear," Jake said with mock politeness, "but first we're going to clean you up. You're going to have a fun new scar."  
  
"Oh boy."

* * *

Chris woke up in Jakes bed as the sun went down that day. He had cleaned her up, and she had nearly fallen asleep on the floor but Jake had helped her up here and she had been asleep up here for the past eight hours. She thought that this had been the only time she had woken up in a guys bed guilt free and without a hangover.  
  
She stumbled out of bed and wandered downstairs, her stomach growling noisily. She could smell food cooking in the kitchen.  
  
As she turned into the kitchen, she met quite a site. The lights were dimmed, and most of the light came from a string of white Christmas lights strung across the ceiling. Candles were set here and there around the kitchen, making what light there was dance in strange ways. The table was set for two with a clean white table cloth, a tall candle, champagne flukes, and a rose. Jake stepped in from the garage.  
  
"Woah," she said slowly, adjusting her left arm in its sling, "Did the Fab Five come while I was sleeping?"  
  
Jakes eyes widened, "Maybe Chance invited the president to dinner, you know, as a surprise."  
  
Chris nodded slowly, "I'm surprised."  
  
T-bone stepped in wearing black slacks and a white shirt. A white apron was tied neatly around his waist and his hair was slicked back.  
  
"Chance..." Jake said slowly, "Where did the kitchen go?"  
  
"I think you're asking the wrong question," Chris said, "I think it all comes down to why he's dressed like that. Chance, why are you dressed like that?"  
  
"Hello, lady and gentelkat, My name is Chance..."  
  
"Well duh."  
  
"...And I will be your server tonight in Megakats newest fine restaurant at Jake and Chances garage and scrap yard. Our motto is dine while your car gets a new carburetor. If you would like to take a seat." He pulled a chair out and motioned for Chris to sit.  
  
"What can I start you off with tonight?"  
  
"I'm thinking wine, lots and lots of wine," Chris said, her eyes still wide with confusion.  
  
Jake had a similar look splashed across his face.  
  
"Of course," Chance pulled a bottle of wine out of the fridge and poured it into their glasses. Chris picked hers up and stared at it, "Chance, this is sweet but you don't drink red wine out of champagne flukes. It just isn't done."  
  
He took the glass back, "If your going to be picky then you don't get any."  
  
Chris snatched the glass back, "On second thought, I'm going to need this. I figure the drunker I get, the more sense this is going to make."  
  
Jake took a sip of his, "Yeah buddy, lets move on to the part where you tell us what's going on."  
  
"How about an appetizer?" Chance set a platter of bread down on the table and began slicing off big hunks.  
  
Chris took a piece, "Did you bake this?"  
  
Chance snorted, "Course not. I bought it at the grocery store and kept it warm in the oven."  
  
"Oh. Well it's good."  
  
"Really?" He reached for a piece, but Chris slapped his hand away, "You're the waiter. Stay in character."  
  
Chance grumbled but went over to the counter to put the main course together.  
  
Chris leaned over the table to whisper to Jake, "What the hell is going on?"  
  
He shrugged, "I have no idea."  
  
She gave him a look.  
  
"Its true! I was gone all afternoon running errands. I saw this the same time as you."  
  
"So your not in on this at all?"  
  
He shook his head, "I'm as surprised as you."  
  
Chance came back with two steaming plates of food.  
  
"Oh wow, it smells great," Chris was starved.  
  
"And it tastes great too," Chance set the plates down in front of them.  
  
"How do you know?"  
  
"I didn't cook it," Chance said and flashed that grin of his.  
  
"Always a good sign," Jake said as he took a bite of chicken with some sort of white sauce, "This is really good."  
  
"I got it from that nice restaurant on Firefly Street."  
  
Chris nodded her approval, "You need to not cook more often."  
  
"I'm going to leave you two alone now to talk," Chance said, bowing out.  
  
Chris stopped her fork half-way to her mouth, "You make that sound so serious. Is there something we're supposed to be talking about? If so I need more wine."  
  
Jake thought a moment "Actually there is something, Chance and I were discussing it earlier and now might be as good a time as any to-"Chance stomped on Jakes tail, "Or not!" Jake continued without missing a beat, "Lets not talk about that now because..." Jake looked to Chance for a reason, he didn't get one, "Well, just because I guess."  
  
Chris put her fork down, "Ok, somebody has to tell me what's going on here sometime soon or else there will be a lot of pain coming from my general direction."  
  
"Well time to go," Chance said and started out the door. Chris grabbed the back of his apron and pulled him back, "What's the deal Chance?"  
  
"Deal?" he said innocently, "No deal. I just want to do something nice for my oldest friend and my newest."  
  
"That sounds really corny, buddy," Jake said as he picked up another piece of chicken.  
  
Chris nodded her agreement.  
  
Chance sighed, "The truth is a do feel more then a little guilty about shooting you. And dropping you out of the plane. But mostly the shooting you. I'm trying to make it up to you," he paused for a long time before saying, "I also don't want to see Jake lose the girl of his dreams."  
  
Jake coughed and took a long drink of his wine. Chris blushed and looked down at her plate, suddenly finding the bits of seasoning stuck to the chicken really fascinating.  
  
Chance quickly changed the subject and poured more wine.  
  
The next hour went quickly. More great food, Chance bustling in and out, Chris' favorite part was that Jake was there, Jakes favorite was that Chris would still be there later.  
  
Dessert came and went, the dirty dishes were taken away, and The Couple, as Chance was jokingly referring to Jake and Chris, was deep in conversation about, of all things, the state of Chris' truck.  
  
Chance suddenly appeared with a plate with a large mixing bowl resting on top, his version of a silver platter.  
  
"More food?" Jake's jaw dropped, "I can't eat anymore."  
  
"Its not for you," Chance said, setting the platter down in front of Chris.  
  
She looked at it with apprehension, "I don't want it. I'm full too."  
  
"Just open it."  
  
Chris slowly lifted the mixing bowl to reveal a small piece of folded paper. She glanced at Chance, "What's this? The bill?"  
  
Chance grinned and motioned for Chris to pick it up. She reached for the paper and slowly opened it. There was a single word printed on it: Hunter.  
  
Chris stared at the paper for a long time before asking, "What is this?"  
  
Chance could barley contain his grin, "A codename," he said as he rocked back on his heels.  
  
"A codename? Like..." she took a breath, "Are you asking me to...to be a, a SWAT Kat?" She looked to Jake, "Did you know about this?"  
  
Jake nodded, "Yes, I was going to ask you about it earlier, remember? I started to and Chance cut me off."  
  
She stared at the slip a little longer, "I'm not sure what to say."  
  
"Say yes."  
  
Chris met Jake's eyes, "You got that line from a movie."  
  
"TV show, actually. But it's true. We couldn't have done it last night without you."  
  
"I, um, wow," Chris faltered. This was what she wanted, wasn't it? But it wasn't and it was all at the same time. She, like the two kats in the kitchen with her now, was a daredevil at heart, so it wasn't that she couldn't handle the danger or the villains or anything else. She had proved that last night. But what was keeping her? There was a voice telling her that this wasn't right. What was that? She filtered through all the reasons in her mind then finally came to it.  
  
She set the paper down, "I can't," she managed to choke out.  
  
Chances face fell and Jake looked like someone had just killed a part of him. Jake reached for her hand, "Why not?"  
  
"I'm a fugitive, Jake. I'm wanted for that whole stupid thing with Feral and the Enforcers and its only a matter of time before that catches up to me. If it catches up to me and I'm connected in anyway to you two then its only a matter of time before somebody figures out that you guys are the SWAT Kats. Just by being here for this long I've put you both in a lot of danger. If I stay here longer, it makes for a bigger and bigger chance that someone is going to find me. If they find me here, then the Enforcers will go over this place with a fine tooth comb and it would be incredibly unlikely that they wouldn't stumble across the hanger or some other thing that would give you away," Although tears welled in Chris' eyes she forbade them to fall. She would fight through this and be fine.  
  
"I'm willing to take that risk," Jake said, squeezing her hand, "I'm willing to risk that for you."  
  
Chance put his hand on Chris' shoulder, "Me too."  
  
Chris shook her head, "I can't take that risk," she swallowed, "Jake says my truck is fixed. I'm leaving tomorrow."  
  
Jakes face fell even further, "Tomorrow? But...you just...you can't. Stay. Please. We can change your name. Cut your hair. I know a guy who can get you some excellent fake I.D.s-"  
  
A glimmer of hope flashed through Chris' mind. She thought for a fleeting moment that it would work, but only for a fleeting moment, "If anything happened to you, to either one of you, on account of me..." she didn't finish her thought, "Jake, I'm doing this for you. For both of you. I should have left a long time ago." She stood and left the table. 


	13. oh, just read it I'm bad at making thes...

Chris slept in her horse trailer that night. Despite her weariness, she got little sleep. She tossed and turned but couldn't get comfortable. She blamed it on her gunshot wound.  
  
She got up early the next morning and stomped around packing things up. Horse looked at her collecting his water bucket with apprehension and moved to the other side of his small stall. He snorted at her and hopped she would get over it soon. She didn't drive well when she was angry. She hit the brakes too fast, missed the clutch, and cut corners, not to mention driving way over the legal speed limit. It made it hard for Horse to stay upright in the jerking trailer.  
  
Chris was having a hell of a time getting everything into the trailer. Her left arm was basically useless and most stuff could not be lifted one handed. She spent much of the time screaming and kicking things.  
  
After a little while Chance came out. He approached slowly then carefully asked, "Do you want some help with this?"  
  
Chris was on the verge of shouting, "No!" but she restrained herself and nodded.  
  
Chance picked a large bale of hay and Chris tried to help but Chance just said, "I got this. Why don't you go get some breakfast."  
  
"I'll eat on the road, I've been dying for a breakfast burrito," she grinned half-heartedly.  
  
There was a loud banging coming from the garage followed by a string of curses.  
  
"Why don't you go talk to Jake," Chance gently offered.  
  
"I will later. Let me help you with this."  
  
"I've got this. Go."  
  
"You're not going to do it right," Chris said with little conviction.  
  
"Go."  
  
Chris nodded then took a deep breath and headed towards the garage. She walked in and found Jake shuffling through a pile of junk on the floor. He picked up a piece, discovered it wasn't the one he wanted, threw it down with a curse, then picked it up again. He was about the throw it down again when he glanced up and saw Chris standing at the door. The piece fell from his hand and clattered to the floor, "Hi."  
  
"Hi," Chris gave a small grin then turned and wandered towards her truck, "So it runs now?"  
  
Jake nodded, wiping his hands on a rag, "Yeah, better then ever."  
  
Chris put a hand on the hood, "Good. Thank you." She turned towards him, "What do I owe you for it."  
  
"Nothing. Its on the house."  
  
"No, Jake. I need to pay you for this."  
  
"I said don't worry about it."  
  
"How much?"  
  
"Why can't you just drop it? I said it's covered," agitation crept into his voice.  
  
Chris forced herself to be calm, "I don't want to leave owing you anything."  
  
"You don't owe me a thing. Trust me." He paused for a long time then added quietly, "If anything I owe you."  
  
Chris sighed, "Fine. Ok. Thank you."  
  
She climbed into the truck and backed it out of the garage, finding it somewhat hard to drive with her bad arm.  
  
Jake sat down and buried his face in his hands.  
  
Chance helped Chris hook the trailer up to the truck, load Horse, and take the pipe stall apart and re-load it into the trailer.  
  
"Thank you so much Chance, for everything," Chris said once everything was stowed away.  
  
"Yeah. It was great of me to shoot you wasn't it," he said, a little sarcastically.  
  
"Hey, that's what friends are for, right?"  
  
Chance grinned, "Yeah," he sighed, "Listen, Jakes' right. You don't have to go we could-"  
  
Chris put her hand up, "Please don't make this any harder then it has to be."  
  
Chance put his arms out and pulled her into a strong embrace.  
  
"Thank you so much," Chris whispered.  
  
"No problem. Have you said goodbye to Jake?"  
  
Chris pulled away, "Not exactly."  
  
"I'll leave you two alone then," he said, and walked towards the tool shed.  
  
Chris sighed, and wiped her eyes. She found Jake sitting on the tool bench, staring off into nowhere.  
  
"Hey," she said quietly, "I'm gonna go soon, so-"  
  
"If you found something," he cut her off, "If you found something that you needed so bad that you didn't even realize it until it was gone. Would you let it go?" He spoke without looking at her.  
  
"Please, Jake. I-"  
  
"Would you?"  
  
"This isn't fair."  
  
"Would you let it go?"  
  
Chris took a deep breath, "What are you going to do, lock me in the closet?"  
  
"Just answer the question."  
  
"Yes," Chris said firmly, "Yes, I would let it go."  
  
Jake glared at her and opened his mouth to speak.  
  
She cut him off before he could get a word out, "If it was best for me and for my friends, I would let it go."  
  
He sat quiet for a long time then mumbled, "You're so selfish."  
  
"Me? Selfish? Do you have any idea how hard this is for me? You can't look far enough past your own nose to see that-"Chris had to stop. She was beyond tears, beyond sobbing. She was close to a total breakdown. "I don't want to leave it like this Jake. I don't want my last memory of you to be the fight we had when I left. Do you? Is this what you want? I can put up a good fight if you really want to. Just keep pushing my buttons and-"  
  
"No!" Jake shouted, jumping off the tool bench and coming close to Chris. "No," he said more quietly, reaching up to push a hair behind her ear, "I don't want to leave it like this. I didn't mean to," he took a deep breath and hugged her, "I'm sorry."  
  
Chris stood stiffly against him, then slowly put her arm around him and pulled him closer.  
  
"Can I kiss you? One last time?" Jake said into her hair.  
  
Chris pulled away, but still held his hand, "No," she suppressed a sob, "I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to stop."  
  
There was the sound of car wheels on gravel and a squealing engine. Callie and her old car pulled into its regular space in the garage and she stepped out saying quickly, "Jake you wouldn't believe the week I've had. The whole thing with the Pastmaster and now the car and the mayor wants this-" she stopped herself when she noticed Chris, "I'm sorry," she said sincerely, "Am I interrupting something?"  
  
Chris looked away from Jake and turned to Callie, "No. No actually. I was just leaving."  
  
Chris spent another moment looking at Jake, then she squeezed his hand, dropped it, and pushed past Callie to leave.  
  
Callie watched her go then turned to Jake, "Who was she?"  
  
"Chris," he said absently, watching the space where she had just been as if wishing hard enough would make her come back.  
  
"What happened to her shoulder?"  
  
"It was a, um, oh you know how it goes around here..."Jake mumbled noncommittally.  
  
"Are you ok?" Callie asked her forehead wrinkling with concern.  
  
"Huh?" Jake said, looking at Callie for the first time.  
  
"Are you ok? You seem distracted."  
  
"Oh, no. I'm fine."  
  
"You sure?"  
  
Jake took a deep breath, "Yeah. Yeah I'm fine." He forced a smile, "What's wrong with the car this time?" 


End file.
